Jinxed
by LadyNRA
Summary: Artie faces a series of mishaps and his team tries to figure out if it's due to accident or artifact.
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **Jinxed

**Author: **LadyNRA

**Rating: **PG-13

**Spoilers: **Set after the last episode of Season 1 so probably some spoilers

**Characters: **Artie mostly but everyone else except Leena are kept busy

**Genre: **Action/Adventure with (I hope) a liberal sprinkling of humor tossed in

**Disclaimer: **The producers and Syfy may own it but if they are willing to sell Artie to me, I'll come up with the cash somehow!

**Summary: **Artie faces a series of mishaps and his team try to figure out if it's due to accident or artifact.

**Author's Note: **This started as a series of three commonplace item/locale "challenges" tossed my way by a friend and fellow author (eg. Write a story with a blender in it). It was supposed to be done as one "item" or "location" per story but then I realized I could tie it all together in this story. What does a 'rowboat', a flatbed truck/water hose, and a hospital have in common? Time to find out….Many thanks to my beta reader who, as always, blesses me with her mad skillz as an editor. Any mistakes are mine...

**JINXED**

By LadyNRA

"Okay, so where's the geezer?" Claudia Donovan shouted as she bounded up the stairs from the Warehouse floor and charged into the perpetually cluttered office.

"Is there a problem?" Myka Bering inquired from her vantage point in the leather chair near the records room. Her tone was mild with just the slightest touch of curiosity. Slowly, she lowered the history book she was reading to her lap.

Claudia frowned before answering. "Not exactly, I just had a question I wanted to ask about the power fluctuations lately."

Across the room, with a large bulky binder in his lap, Pete Lattimer glanced up and looked at his partner. "So, since you've read more of this than I have, why don't you give her a hand?"

Pretending not to hear him, Myka flipped a page, and threw a scrap piece of paper between the sheets before slowly closing it. The binding creaked with age and Myka inhaled deeply as if savoring the odor of the ancient tome.

"The manual doesn't give much in the way of practical advice when it comes to certain systems. That was one reason Artie wanted her to have hands-on training so she could become better acquainted with the operations in here. So to put it into words you can understand…to supplement book learning with practical experience," she explained coolly but with a twinkle in her eye. In a land where there was little to do but work and hang out at Leena's Bed & Breakfast, teasing Pete had become a primary source of entertainment.

"Hey, I've got skills you know," Pete said with a good deal of bravado.

Myka cocked an eyebrow, her green eyes daring him to turn words into deeds.

He wilted slightly under her intense scrutiny. "Okay, okay, what's the problem, specifically?" He scowled as he asked the question because he knew he'd never bluff his way out of this no matter how hard he tried.

Chin dipping to her chest, Claudia looked up at him with dark eyes that said, _"You are so full of it, but WTF, I can use a laugh too."_

"Okay, here's the dope. The system monitoring the grid shows _'something'_ is going on but I can't interpret the data. Figured his royal haughtiness might deign to come down from his throne for a few minutes and explain it to me. Which is why I came up here. So question one, can you channel the gods of this place and get me some answers? Or question two, where is our illustrious leader…because I know he knows?"

"He was in one of his…um…'_I want to get this over and done with, so don't get in my way'_ moods," Pete replied.

"Oh fantabulous," Claudia threw her hands up then let them drop down to slap at her thighs. She looked at Pete and Myka as if expecting them to volunteer to talk to him on her behalf but clearly her expression said she knew better. "Fine, what's he doing that he doesn't want interruptions?"

Myka wrinkled her nose slightly. "Muttered something about 'fixing the fish', gathered up the usual stuff he takes whenever he says that, and walked outside."

"Anyone wanna take a walk with me? Ms. Bimbo with the Big Boobs who does the weather for WXJR said it was promising to be an awesomely beautiful day."

Pete stood up immediately and dropped his manual on the nearest flat surface with a loud bang. "Let's do this!" he grinned.

"Putting it off won't help," Myka chided, looking at the manual that Pete just couldn't seem to get through. Then she also got to her feet. "But I could use the exercise so I'm in." She brushed dust left by the ancient book off her slacks, then gingerly set it on the desk near her so it would be handy for her return.

The group, laughing and teasing each other, enjoyed the short walk to the 'pond'. The brackish body of water was, in reality more like a small lake but someone had started calling it 'the pond' and the description had stuck. Claudia was practically skipping as she threw her arms wide beneath the rays of the sun as a light breeze caressed her skin. She kept on like that even after spying the short, portly form of her employer, Arthur Nielsen, standing on the shore near a small grayish rowboat.

"Yo, yo, Artie," she called out. At first, she thought her voice didn't carry far enough and was just about to call out again when he turned toward her with a tightlipped expression. "_Yup_," she thought to herself, "_definitely in a leave me alone mood_." But that had never stopped her before, so she practically bounced on over to him.

"Been lookin' for ya," she finally said as she tried to look through his sunglasses in order to read his eyes.

Looking away, he stated flatly, "Why?"

"Hey, no "hi Claudia, how are you today?" Why I'm doing fine, Artie, really. How are you?" She knew that wasn't the right thing to ask even as the words slid out of her mouth.

"Busy, as you can plainly see, so why don't you, and your entourage head on back and leave me alone."

"I will, after you answer a question," she responded lightly.

Sighing heavily, he pushed his glasses, which had slid down a bit, back up to the bridge of his nose, shoved both hands into his pockets and faced her, silent.

Before she could get a word out, Pete and Myka had joined them. Lattimer playfully jabbed at Artie shoulder, totally oblivious to the other man's body language or lack thereof.

"Hey boss, whatcha doin? Hoping to catch us some dinner?"

"You wouldn't want to eat whatever's living in there," Artie finally answered after wrinkling his nose. "It would—look—nevermind. I have work to do. And so do you. If not, I'll find something, so—" His gaze shifted back to Claudia. "You were about to say?"

"Just trying to get a handle on shifting power readings at the Warehouse and –"

Artie impatiently waved his hand to shush her up. "I'm handling it. Now…as we speak. If you'll let me get on with it!" His tone became distinctly irritated. Instinctively, Claudia leaned back as if the mere sound of his voice had thrown a jab at her chin.

Pete was not so easily dissuaded, "But what is under there? I know it's some kinda fish, you've said the same thing every time you come out here, but what's the deal with it? Is it sick?"

"It's not a living thing," explained Artie with a slow side-to-side motion of his head as if to unkink tight neck muscles. Claudia decided, given how tense he looked, that was probably the case. Expelling air through pursed lips he surrendered to the inevitable. He wasn't going to get out of giving a lecture and he knew it.

Claudia opened her mouth to ask the obvious question but Pete beat her to it. "So what it is?"

"A construct. A multipart machine designed to work in tandem to provide power to the Warehouse." He swatted a fly that had settled on his cheek then scratched the spot as it flew away. "You ever see guys fight a fire when there is limited water?"

Shaking his head 'no', Pete responded wistfully, "Dad never really talked about his work once he walked through the front door."

Artie's facial muscles visibly went lax as he recalled Pete's history. "Well, anyway, if no tanker truck, hydrant or body of water is available, the fire department sets up relays. They'll go to a water source, fill up, cart it back and transfer it to the pumpers and keep doing it, at least until the fire is out. The principle here is similar.

"Originally, the FISH was designed with bronze plates that absorbed the sun's heat and then transferred it via the conduit to-, He glanced at the lake for a minute.

"To?" Pete prompted with a genuinely interested inflection to the question.

"What? Oh, uh, right. To the storage batteries and power conversion units under the mountain, which in turn were used to provide all the necessary utilities to the Warehouse from 1914 until about—" he paused and looked upward as if the answers could be read on the sky above them, "about 1975 when it was mechanically upgraded and retrofitted with solar cells." He looked at the group and pointed at the boat. "Pretty much what you are about to see as soon as I get out there."

Claudia looked at him. "So the power fluctations means something is wrong with the FISH?"

"Not always, although, in this case, yes, it-."

"What the hell does that mean anyway?" Pete cut in, scrunching up his face as he asked it.

"What are you referring to?" Artie asked. "Power fluctuations or –"

Pete snorted. "The 'fish' Artie. Why "the fish"?" He made the standard quote gesture with his fingers.

"F.I.S.H.s stands for Fully Integrated Self-contained Habitat system. FISH for short."

"So you were saying?" prompted Claudia.

"Yeah, um, well, you see, the FISH did power the whole Warehouse for a long time but eventually power requirements outweighed its ability to meet our needs. The Warehouse inventory was growing exponentially at that time thanks to the advent of intercontinental communications and, later on, the internet. We were doing retrievals almost non-stop, pulling in artifacts from all over the world. The pumps inside the Neutralizer Processing Centerwere working overtime shunting excess tangential energies to a safe place and the FISH wasn't keeping up, so we eventually…obviously …connected to the state power grid in order to compensate for the massive power drain occurring at that time."

"So why keep the FISH functioning?" Myka inquired, then threw up her hands. "Wait, I get it. In case there's a catastrophic loss of power from the grid."

Artie nodded and combed fingers through his hair before throwing his straw hat over his dark curls. "More or less. The FISH can temporarily, _temporarily,_ deal with our power needs, especially if we limit our usage. As I said, there are special batteries connected to the main body of the mechanism…enormous, absolutely enormous…"

"The batteries or the whole power plant?" Asked Claudia.

Glowering at her briefly for interrupting his train of thought, he replied, "Both. No matter how brilliant some of our early scientists and engineers were, they couldn't always create miniaturized versions of their design concepts. In other words, the original inventor, Elihu Thomson, didn't have the technology at his disposal to scale it down. And after it was built, the Regents didn't feel a lot of upgrades were warranted because it worked well most of the time. So, to answer your question, the entire FISH system would never be called 'small'."

Artie made rolling motions with his right hand as if to fast-forward the conversation. "In any case, there are minor flaws in its design and we are stuck with them. Or, rather, I've been stuck with them."

His gaze roped in Claudia's attention and held tight. "Soon enough, I'll be letting you try this. But for now, since you're here and not eager to leave, you might as well watch what happens. You too," he added swiveling his head to take in his two agents. "I'm not going to expect either of you to do this but it wouldn't hurt to observe the process." He crooked a finger at the teenager and curled it several times as if to say, _'come on over here_.'

Sighing with disgust, Claudia moved closer. Yet another of the seemingly endless chores she was going to have to attend to some day. Truth was, though she was much younger and more athletic than Artie, she secretly wondered where he found the energy to monitor and attend to every maintenance activity within the Warehouse. On a 'bad day' it seemed never-ending.

"So how often would I have to beat the crap out of this thing before it begs for mercy?" she asked through tight lips.

Nielsen answered directly, "Whenever the alarm bells start screaming at you."

"But that didn't happen this time."

"I disarmed it when I saw the readings. That's why I came out here. I just noticed it before you did," he said sounding somewhat smug.

Frowning, Claudia hurled icicles at him with her dark eyes. Lately the friendly rivalry had grown into a real competition. Most of the time she thrived on this but today she was mentally tired and irritable and PMSing. Simply put, she wasn't interested in the game, at least not at that moment.

"Well, bully for you!" she growled at him, which put a deep furrow between his large brown eyes.

Studying her for several seconds, he let his shoulders lift in a minute shrug and allowed a tiny sigh to escape his lips.

"Okay, the basics are this," he started explaining to the entire group even though he knew Claudia's understanding of the subject was better than either Pete or Myka's. "It spends most of its time hiding just below the surface, collecting the rays of the sun. Some energy is siphoned off for its own needs, to keep it functioning. The rest is stored. When it's reached its maximum load, it submerges, travels to the docking station and discharges its load into the main storage systems. From there it is converted into standard AC inside the Warehouse. Photovoltaic Cell technology 101 in a nutshell."

Myka looked intrigued, her green eyes smiling even though her lips weren't. "How often does that happen?"

Artie didn't hesitate in answering her. "Once every hour or so. Twice as long on cloudy or rainy days. And of course it goes into sleep mode after sunset or when the pond freezes over. In the old days water from a hot spring was rerouted to keep the surface ice free. But obviously it's not necessary anymore. As for the algae-" he fluttered his perpetually moving hands in front of his chest. "—nevermind. Lesson for another day."

Reaching down to the ground, he lifted the bizarre looking device that was reminiscent of a fishing rod, but only in the vaguest sense. He turned the proximal end toward Claudia and showed her several dials.

"When the time comes, I'll explain how to use them. But for now, suffice it to say that this mobilizes the Remote Solar Collector to rise above water level. This one controls the light source used to recalibrate. Don't ask me how that happens, I don't know." He stopped and studied the knobs. "Well, I do know, sort of, but it's hard to explain. So skip it."

"Fine, skipped," she answered, studying both the dials and his hands as he pointed at them. He had moved them, probably without thinking about it, both left and right, then reset it so that the dials were back in their original positions.

"In a sense we summon the FISH and –" Without another word, he looped the straps of the face mask around his neck.

"And?" Claudia prompted again, literally leaning in real close to catch his attention then pulling back quickly as his head shifted.

He rolled his eyes. "And…and nothing. You'll see. Pay attention." The rod went into the ancient rowboat sitting on the shore. That was followed by an opaque and bulging shrink-wrapped package.

"Not easy from this vantage point," she responded already eyeing the boat with concern. She pointed at it with a long slender finger. "Are you sure that thing will make it out there without sinking midway?"

"It's done its job for longer than I've been here. I'm sure it'll keep on doing it when you take over."

"Not comforting, Artie," she growled as he gave it a small shove toward the water, grunting as he did so.

Sliding on the fishing vest over his tan striped shirt, he methodically topped it with his sun-bleached black trench coat and pulled on fingerless gloves, clearly a warrior donning his battle armor.

"No toolbox?" Myka asked as he got ready to board the tiny rowboat.

Patting the pockets of his vest, Nielsen replied, "Got a few items right here for simple repairs but probably won't need 'em. This isn't a repair mission, just one to assure it's running at optimum efficiency. That's precisely what this is for." He thrust one thick finger at the rod jutting over the bow of the boat.

Taking one final moment to shuck off his battered Converses, he slid into rubber boots that were stowed in a plastic bag onboard the boat. Then with one final shove, the rowboat slid into the water, followed by Artie who instantly sank up to his ankles in the algae laden water. A quick practiced hop and he was in place on the seat. Grabbing the oars in both hands, he kept working one oar until the prow of the boat was facing the pond's center. Once heading in the proper direction, he gave a strong pull and started to smoothly glide away from them.

Several energetic tugs at the oars got him about a third of the way out and then he slowly reversed the motion of the oars until he stopped all forward momentum. Standing up wasn't an easy task in the rickety boat. It seesawed back and forth for a few seconds but eventually he managed to hold it steady without capsizing in the process. Quickly, he strapped the black mask over his nose and mouth, patting the Velcro closure down to make certain it didn't slip off at the worst possible moment. Cautiously, he bent over and retrieved the rod, then pointed the large circular cylinder into the watery depths. A green light began emanating from the side of it and another section began to glow orange.

On the shore, all three Warehouse employees saw him shift his hand to the device and from there presumably twist one of the two knobs on it. At first, nothing happened. Artie bowed his body forward clearly scanning the water even though the greenish algae was dense enough to completely obscure anything down there. Pete and Myka felt their muscles growing tight with anticipation, wondering what kind of contraption the pond would yield up.

They didn't have long to wait. There was a slight disturbance near the rowboat. Suddenly water began to bubble, then boil furiously. Miniature geysers plumed upward spraying Artie with hundreds of fine bejeweled droplets but he didn't react to them. Instead, his focus was riveted on what was slowly rising to the surface, water pouring off its glistening black surface in fast running waterfalls. Ninety percent of the thing's upper shell seemed to comprise one giant solar array. Enormous black wings, previously stretched out over a large portion of the pond began to accordion in on themselves, until they sat alongside the main body like the wings of jets on aircraft carriers.

Even in that position, the body looked more like a sting ray than the average fish most people associated with the word. Oddly enough, as if alive, it was facing Artie, waiting…watching. Evil smelling clouds of smoke puffed skyward from somewhere on its back. Nielsen's face mask suddenly made sense to the spectators.

Laying the rod down momentarily, Artie moved the farthest oar side to side as if the boat was a gondola and got it to the point where he could reach out and touch the FISH. And that was exactly what he did. Somehow maintaining his balance, he stretched out one arm. With deft motions of his fingers, a hatch opened, lifting upward. He dug into the trench coat pocket and withdrew what looked like an antiquated volt meter, complete with wires and alligator clips on each end, although no one on the shore could tell for sure what it actually was. The device was bigger than the Farnsworth but not by much. He attached it to something recessed into the opening and read the results. He laid the meter against the face of the panel, stepped back and retrieved the rod. Aiming it at a large circular bronze plate above the hatch, there was a sudden brightness as a beam of orange light hit the plate. The bronze seemed to glow, pulsed like a heartbeat for a few seconds, before fading out.

Supporting the rod in the crook of his arm, Artie reexamined the meter, seemed satisfied with what he saw, and released the clips. He stowed the meter back in his pocket and set the rod down once more. As the boat continued to bob, he spread his legs for balance again, fiddled with something else inside the panel, then leaned back.

Almost immediately, there was a gap in the front part of the machine not far below the hatch. The split widened. Two semicircular panels reminiscent of lips drew back, baring a black maw. Something the color of burnished gold writhed inside for about 10 seconds then poked its head out. It snaked toward Artie who didn't budge from his precarious perch.

The internal mechanism that soon revealed itself was like a large segmented tube the diameter of a fire hose, with an object resembling a big showerhead on the end. This section stopped about two feet from his hand and he snagged it behind the collar and pulled it closer to him. Soon, his fingers were examining the collar's couplings, and then they moved on to probe the oddly shaped protuberances of the conduit's head.

His hand dipped into a vest pocket and retrieved a small tool, which he wedged between collar and head, neatly snapping the latter free of the hose. The tool was returned and replaced with a folding knife from another small pocket. Artie flipped that open one-handed with a click that carried over to the spectators. He tossed the old head into the boat, ignoring the weighty thunk as it hit. A quick slash of the knife and the shrink-wrapped bag opened. He refolded the knife, slipped it back into its original resting place. As he upended the bag, another newer showerhead gizmo landed in his free hand. A quick snap and twist of his wrist and the replacement head was installed and secured with practiced ease.

Standing on the muddy shore, they saw him gently, almost affectionately, pat the apparatus like it was a pet and most surprising of all the hose began its retreat back into the maw. The metal lips sealed over it. They watched him flip the hatch closed and start to tilt backward. Obviously the session was ended.

Disgorging more bilious steam, the whole massive device began to recede into the depths, its wings unfurling gracefully, though loudly, outward. As it had previously, the water's parted, boiling and frothing, going down, down…but before Artie could even sit, the whole thing shifted forward just before its dorsal section had disappeared into the depths.

Caught off guard, Nielsen started to fall backward as the boat shifted beneath his feet. They heard him shout something that sounded colorful despite the distance as he fought to regain his balance. But age and body composition were against him. His center of balance had shifted south since his younger days and he overcompensated when he tried leaning forward. This only made matters worse. Instinct caused him to take a step forward, which, on an already wobbly boat in the midst of churning waters, wasn't a good thing. The rod, resting on the side of the little vessel, toppled into the algae covered water. The look of horror on his face was hidden by the face mask but his body language said it all.

The decision to go in after his equipment or not was taken from him as the boat tipped farther. Arms flailing wildly, he lost the battle to stay dry. Instead of a graceful dive, he belly-flopped. Green water sprayed up and out for an impressive distance and he disappeared under the surface.

Twenty seconds later, the team of agents along with Claudia got worried. He hadn't surfaced. The water was still churning fiercely as if the mechanical beast was angry.

"Artie!" Claudia howled. "Oh no! I think it ate him!" She turned pleading eyes on Pete and Myka. "Do something!" Neither agent moved as their eyes continued to scan the water for human appendages coming up.

At thirty seconds, both Pete and Myka were stripping off their shoes and jackets while still anxiously watching the settling jade surface. Just as they were taking their first wading steps out there, a pale figure, sans mask, rocketed up out of the depths, gasping and spewing green stuff from nose and mouth. They heard him grunting with the effort to stay afloat but he was clearly making his way to the boat. The rod, oddly enough, was clutched in his free hand and he hurled it unceremoniously over the prow. He hung there a second, coughing mightily and making odd gagging sounds in the process. From nearby an eerie keening issued from the depths below him. Looking wildly in that direction, he ripped off his trench coat and vest and flipped them in after the rod.

Myka knew just by assessing the situation that those water soaked items, filled with tools and odds and ends, was probably weighing him down to some extent. But even sans gear, he probably wasn't going to make it back into the little rowboat. She could tell by the look in Pete's eyes that they both shared the same thought…to go out there and help him. The only thing stopping them was that he knew they were there, watching, and hadn't yet asked for assistance. That was so Artie. Had been since the day they'd first met him. So they stood and waited.

Watching Nielsen grab the prow with his gloved hand, they saw him begin dragging the little vessel behind him. The going was slow but he made progress and eventually got his bootless feet on the muddy pond bottom. He left the boat within easy reach and gestured with one forefinger for someone to get it but no one moved.

As he drew himself up to his full height of 5'7", the spectators got quite a show. The light colored shirt he'd gone into the water with not only clung to him like a second skin but had also turned virtually transparent. Worse yet, although Artie was unaware of it, the pants weren't in a much better state and certainly didn't leave a whole lot up to the imagination.

Claudia covered her mouth and tried not to laugh. Oblivious to condition, Artie's frustrated expression morphed into confusion. "Dude, I always figured you for a boxers kinda guy. I mean, briefs? Really? Now, I know what to get you for Christmas."

At that moment, realization dawned and he blushed furiously. With a look of total mortification plastered on his face, Artie glanced down and uttered his favorite 'stressed-out' phrase, "Oh God…" They expected him to do the obvious thing...get his coat and cover up.

Instead he stood there, chin dipped toward his 'exposed' chest, and shook his head. He tried to peel the shirt from his skin but it stuck like glue. He bestowed a sheepish grin on them over his lack of success.

Then, hands strategically placed in front of his pants, he looked up at the blue and cloudless sky and soundlessly bellowed to the heavens about the injustice of having witnesses to his humiliation.

As if reading his mind, Pete simply said, "Karma. Oh well…"

"Karma my ass," Artie replied with a growl. "If Karma was something corporeal, I'd be beating it to a bloody pulp right about now!"

Trying to break the tension and to keep from laughing at his emotional discomfort, Myka calmly asked, "So did you fix it?"

Brows knitting together, Artie muttered, "Oh I fixed it all right!" and then, clothing made squishy sounds in his wake, he began a soggy trek back to the office where a desperately needed change of apparel was waiting for him.

Unlike Pete and Myka, Claudia simply couldn't let it slide. Once her chuckles had subsided, she let out a loud wolf-whistle as his backside, and the pants tightly molded to it, disappeared around a hill. 


	2. Chapter 2

**oooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 2**

**oooooooooo**

For a week, cat calls and wolf whistles resonated throughout the office every time Artie walked in. At first he scowled and muttered under his breath at the jokes they made at his expense. He growled loudest at Myka who usually championed him when no one else would, but even she couldn't resist telling him how hot he looked in his FISHing outfit.

This invariably made him want to duck and cover…mostly cover…and walk out of the room, which he did if he was able to. Unfortunately, Claudia had learned his routine quickly and would block the doorway out to the Warehouse floor. On one such occasion, he tried bullying his way past her, snarling and glowering like a rabid pit bull, but she simply planted both slender hands on his chest and, while suggestively batting her eyelashes, blew air kisses at him. He immediately blanched and backed away.

The next time, it was Myka. _Shame on her_, he thought to himself as the behavior spread like wildfire. Then to his ultimate horror, Pete was next, smiling lewdly throughout most of the brief encounter. That was simply too much. Lighter on his feet than most people would have assumed, he danced his way around them all and charged down the umbilicus instead. He'd hopped in his Jaguar, spraying dirt everywhere, and roared back to Leena's. He holed up in his room, refusing to come out until they came to their senses and treated him with the respect he deserved. According to them, he was getting exactly what he deserved, so the cease and desist order didn't work.

Ultimately, that meant he set the Warehouse on what passed for 'auto pilot' and stayed sequestered in his room, presumably enjoying the solitude. They assumed he was catching up on his reading and enjoying an endless stream of visual entertainment. They knew this because Pete had eavesdropped on several occasions and could hear the voices of recognizable movies steadily blaring through the solid wood door.

What did surprise them was that, after two days, he never showed for meals. Knowing Artie's fondness for being prepared and an equally great fondness for snacking, Myka reasoned he probably maintained a stash of non-perishable foods up there.

The only time that room went silent was between bedtime and the general hour he usually woke up.

It wasn't until Mrs. Frederic, purveyor of the evil eye, showed up and chastised each and every one of them for their childish behavior that things started to calm down. Berated into submission they all sat in the living room, quietly, hoping to escape further notice as the grand High Poobah of their little operation went upstairs to have words with Artie.

She came downstairs a few moments later, more sour-faced than they thought possible.

"Where's Arthur?" she inquired civilly but with tightly restrained anger.

"Upstairs," Claudia blurt out without thinking.

"He is most decidedly _not_ upstairs," the stern-faced African American woman declared in a tight voice.

"But we hear—" Pete started to reply.

At that moment, the front door opened, and a whistling Artie strolled in. "Mrs. Frederic," he stated pleasant as he pulled the magnetically attached sunglasses off his regular spectacles. "To what do we owe this honor?"

"_We_ were just wondering where you were, since your compatriots were under the impression that you were upstairs, but clearly you were not," their superior calmly replied.

"What gave them that idea?" he asked with just the hint of smile. "I was-

"Yo, dude, the TV was on until you went to bed and came back on this morning," Claudia interjected.

"Interval Timer_, dude_," Artie answered, emphasizing the last word.

This time Myka just had to cut in. "So if you weren't here, sneaky by the way, and you weren't at the Warehouse, we did check you know, where the heck were you?"

Pointing in the general direction of the 'outside', Artie replied, "At my place," as if that explained it all.

'His place?' Mouthed Pete to Myka. Then he leaned closer to his partner and whispered. "I didn't even know he had _a place _other than here."

Mrs. Frederic hid a smile. This kind of camaraderie among coworkers could be decidedly unproductive and distracting but it also reflected the kind of bond that ultimately made them all a better team. Therefore, she effectively hid her grin, and since the others had already experienced the Wrath of Frederic, turned a scowl on Artie.

"You are far too old to be playing these kinds of games, Arthur, and you, of all people, should know better."

"Not to worry, Mrs. Frederic." Artie's half smile faded into a more somber expression and he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. "I remotely activated the monitoring systems of the Warehouse. Pete, Myka and Claudia are experienced enough to periodically check up on it, and I know Claudia did because my alarm system alerted me to changes in the condition there. A few quick key commands, a few swipes at the touch tablet, and every move she made showed up on my home computer."

His fingers made deft movements, pantomiming in unison to his explanation. Then he paused, idly ran two fingers through his goatee, and glanced at the teenager with an obvious twinkle in his brown eyes before facing Mrs. Frederic again. "I installed it myself several years ago and it functions quite nicely thank you very much."

For a brief couple of seconds, Mrs. Frederic appeared to want to pursue the matter but thought better of it. "Very well, Arthur. Clearly you are on top of things." She looked at the others with hard eyes. "I don't know what provoked this but I hope it will cease as of this very moment. You are adults, so act like it."

"Yes, ma'am," they all replied apologetically.

"Please follow me. I'd like to talk to you," the liaison between Warehouse and Regents stated, brooking no argument. Looking mildly fearful, Artie followed her outside.

"So not gonna happen," Pete muttered to Claudia as soon as the door closed. "I can't act like an adult on a good day and this wasn't even close to being one of those."

Giggling, Claudia gave him a high five. "Hell, you said it. Besides, I got a built in excuse. I'm a hormonal teenager. Acting like a child comes with the territory." She did a little dance, pirouetted, and poked him in the side with both fingers. "And I'll tell ya something else, no matter what, I'm never gonna be too old to antagonize Artie. Annoying him is about the only decent entertainment we have around here."

Myka laughed at that, knowing only too well that Univille was probably a candidate for the Most-Boring-Town-in-the-Universe award. Some days, despite her more serious nature, even she did some pretty strange things to keep from going stir crazy.

When Artie returned, his face was a stolid mask. He looked mildly displeased, which usually meant that he'd just gotten news he didn't particularly care for, news that was Warehouse related, something he had to work on…soon…and the leads weren't the best.

As he walked up the stairs, he shot a tense look at his trio of coworkers. "Warehouse, thirty minutes. I've got research to do." And then he was gone.


	3. Chapter 3

**oooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 3**

**oooooooooo **

A few folders were slapped down on the round table inside the warehouse office. One 29 year old, one 32 year old, and one 19 year old sat and stared at them. Several books got hurled on top of the paper piles but, as if realizing how irreverently he was treating these treasures, Artie gently restacked them, moved his coffee cup as close to him as possible without sending it over the edge and sat down. The ancient chair groaned in protest, causing Claudia to stifle a chuckle.

Artie hurled a pointed glare at her and she quickly looked away. Then he tapped the papers with one broad hand. "Let's jump right into it, shall we?"

"The last time you did that, it was wet tee-shirt time," Claudia said through her fingers, as if covering her mouth would help.

"Next time, the FISH needs maintenance, I'm sending you out there…_alone_!" threatened Artie through tight lips. "Now, please focus or I'll send you downstairs to clean up while the hopefully more mature members of my team focus on the problem at hand."

Warning taken, Pete just stared hard at Claudia as if to say, "_Cool it, shut up, and pay attention!_"

Myka had already put her poker face on and, like Pete, only her eyes held any warning for the teenager.

Throwing both hands up in surrender, Claudia leaned back in her wood chair. "You da hood boss! So let's get this party started!" She bounced in her seat and snapped her fingers as if dancing to a song only she could hear.

Both of Artie's elbows had been resting on the table by that time, and he suddenly dropped his forehead into his palms, his fingers splaying through his tight curls. When he finally looked back at her, he had obviously regained composure.

"Mystery number one. Death by shower," was all he said.

"What?" Pete inquired, his handsome face not looking quite as attractive as he frowned. "Are you trying to say—"

"Yes…well, no, not exactly…um, sort of, sort of." Artie grew silent as he ordered his thoughts, a difficulty he often experienced when he was attempting to ruminate on several problems while trying to expound on just one of them.

"Recently, in Malibu, a man, a full grown, healthy male, mind you, was drowned in his shower. They found him floating in there, the door sealed up tight. What was bizarre was that there was no reason for it to stay shut. It had no locks and there was a gap between the top of the shower door and the ceiling. Add to that the fact that he was a surfer and a more than capable swimmer."

Leaning back in his chair, Pete muttered. "Okay, you're right. Weirdsville. So are there more reports of these?"

"Not at the moment," Artie replied lilting his voice slightly.

"Come on, man. I know you by now. You generally don't bring stuff like this up unless you see a pattern, and last time I checked, 'one' event doesn't constitute a 'pattern'.

Without hesitation, Artie answered, "The article caught my attention when reading one of those scandal sheets from the supermarket. And my instincts hollered at me so I am going to place it on my list of things to follow up on- "

"Wait, wait!" Myka interjected more forcefully than customary. "You mean you are taking stories from things like the Enquirer and lending credence to them just because it sounded strange?"

"Au contraire, my dear Myka," Artie replied crossing his arms and leaning back slightly in his chair. The rear legs shrieked in agony but finally stilled as he soon as he stopped moving. "Ninety-eight percent of what's in those things is bogus. We all know it. But every now and then they come up with news-of-the-weird stories that may have a basis in fact. And you know I never ignore any piece of information—"

"Until you are _sure_ you can ignore it," Claudia and Myka solemnly chanted the litany.

That made Artie scowl at everyone, even Pete who had said nothing but clearly was agreeing with them, if his expression was any indicator of his thoughts. "—no matter what the source." Nielsen finished tersely.

"Okay," Pete said after taking a sip of his own drink, the beverage of champions, milk…served cold and in a regular glass. "So we do what with this tidbit?"

"File it away for future reference. Place it on the back burner so to speak. For now."

Claudia finally piped in. "So you gathered us all here just to tell us about some gnarly dude getting whacked by his shower?"

The answer was quick in coming. "No! I did not. That's just the appetizer. The main entrée is a series of catatonic individuals suddenly getting admitted to hospitals in the Seattle area. They are, like your 'gnarly surfer', seemingly healthy one day and the next time anyone sees them, they are stretched out—"

Artie suddenly pulled out a folder from the small stack and hurriedly rifled through it. "—on the streets, totally out of it. Unmoving, unseeing, in other words, totally unresponsive. And so far, none are showing signs of recovery."

"Anything unusual about their physical state when they are picked up?" Myka queried.

Artie rewarded her with his trademark half-smile. "Ah Myka, always quick to put pieces of the puzzle together." He handed copies of several medical and police reports around the table. "There is nothing out of the ordinary except—_except_—" he repeated the word for emphasis as he jabbed a forefinger into the air, "for small stab wounds on arms or legs."

Anyone who knew Myka could tell the wheels were turning just by noting the glittering of her green eyes. "Each body bore the same stab wound?"

"Location varied but forensics says it's the same blade. And none of the victims were killed. They just ended up being hauled to the ERs, patched up and then admitted to the ICU for observation." He started to collect the sheets everyone had already glanced at. "None of the doctors can figure out why they stay catatonic. There is no evidence of head trauma, nor something of a viral, bacterial or parasitic nature."

"So you are saying that the attacks were all designed to wound, not kill."

"It would seem so," Artie replied, his fingers scratching slowly at the hairs on his chin. He dropped the hand to the table and soon those fingers were slowly beating out a staccato beat on the wood surface.

Myka took another look at the medical reports as if staring at them long enough would yield some answers. Any answers. "What information do you have on knives with the power to leave its victims totally out of it?"

"Specifically catatonic," Claudia chimed in. "Is there anything on your database that would list folks who end up totally gorked without explanation?"

Nodding slowly, Artie responded, "Plenty of them. Going as far back as medical records storage on microfiche. And some even beyond that if the hospitals and medical schools took the time to catalog such things in medical and psychiatric journals. We have easy access to those. Sadly, the vast majority of medical information was stored in ancient typewritten records that we could never sift through efficiently."

"And just how common is the catatonic state?" Pete inquired with furrowing brows, hoping that he wasn't going to be saddled with an exhausting and prolonged research project.

"Around the world? More common than you think. There are well over 50 different reasons for it to occur, some physically linked, others psychologically—," he stopped and stared off into the depths of the Warehouse visible through the windows, as his agile mind sorted facts. "Yeah, well, never mind all that. The catatonic state we are seeing is found in those people suffering from Catatonic Schizophrenia. Fortunately, it's pretty rare in the United States so that will help make the search go quicker."

"That's like the people who don't move for hours, even days, correct?" Pete queried.

"Or weeks…or months…" Artie mumbled unconsciously as he got up to park himself at his computer. As he typed something they couldn't see, he added, "Extreme immobility is uncommon enough for us to track this a bit more easily. Problem is sorting through all the—" He stopped and kept on typing.

"All the—" prompted Claudia with a bob of her head and a come-on-already circling of her hands.

As if unaware he'd been distracted, he murmured, "Hmmm?" But then he caught the teenager's hand signals. "Oh, right. There are other reasons for people to appear like our victims and wading through the numbers of those cases to find what we need might be a bit 'vexing'."

"Vexing?" Myka mouthed to Pete with a slight grin. Pete just shrugged and smiled back. Ever practical, she asked, "So what can we do to help?"

"Just stay out of my way while I work on it." That old familiar short-tempered growl had crept back into his voice. "Don't you have something to do in the meantime? Repairs, Claudia? Inventory, Myka? And for you, Pete…I suggest chugging some of those Monster drinks you like so much and tackle that manual again. The last time you fell asleep on it you drooled all over some of the pages and they had to be replaced!"

"Hey, that's not what—" Pete said, clearly miffed. But the damage had been done. The others were grinning at him so he simply did as his boss suggested.


	4. Chapter 4

**oooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 4**

**oooooooooo**

"Whatcha doin?" Claudia asked the next morning as she stared at a small flatbed truck filled with boxes of assorted sizes. Slowly she walked back and forth, staring at the names on the cartons.

"Interesting…" she smirked. "Bathroom supplies, office supplies, cleaning supplies, supply room supplies."

"Thank you for the verbal checklist," Artie muttered irritably as he looked over all the cartons. Usually Mrs. Frederic sent two guys to help unload the vehicle so he didn't have quite as much hauling to do. Fifty trips up and down those stairs could be a real killer on fifty five year old knees and vertebrae. But those same two guys had also shown up with a third guy and together they had all disappeared into town for a meal. That left Artie in the unenviable position of drafting Pete, Myka and Claudia. They'd grown tired of him asking for this kind of assistance lately. He'd seen it in the rolling eyes and heard it in the sarcastic comebacks. However, running the Warehouse was more than just one mission after another as they well knew. Mundane tasks comprised most of their job description and occupied much of their working hours. This kind of 'junk' simply had to get done.

"What's this one?" Claudia asked hefting a medium size box.

Studying the stenciled numbers, Artie checked his clip board containing a solitary printed sheet. Running the tip of his Mont Blanc pen down the list, he stopped suddenly and read, "Pads, pens, staples, Post-It Notes. Lots and lots of Post-It Notes," he sighed softly.

"Yeah, well, dude, you go through those things the way crack-heads go through their sh—uh, stuff." She looked down at his list. "Please tell me you ordered something other than pastel shades again." She flipped her wind-blown red hair out of her eyes and added, "Booorrrring. I mean, if I see another pastel green sticky pad I'm gonna hurl!"

Piercing her with a pointed stare, Artie responded gently…_too_ gently, "Well, then you have nothing to worry about because you aren't the one using them. And, if you prefer, I can keep you so busy downstairs you'll never have to look at another green post-it note again."

"Yeah, yeah," she said, backing away from the offending box and the equally offensive boss. "Heard that one before. Too many times in fact. You gotta get a new repertoire of threats, you know that?" Slowly she turned to walk away.

"Hold on a second," he ordered and she stopped dead in her tracks. "On your way down there, take a few of these." He handed over a few of the smaller, lighter containers and began dragging more off.

Claudia hadn't been gone more than a few minutes when Pete and Myka strolled out through the main entrance of the Warehouse. Presumably, they'd passed a miffed Claudia and gotten an earful about the reasons for her general unhappiness.

"Why aren't you waiting for the driver and his helper to take care of this stuff?" Myka asked.

Clearly Artie was pondering the question. "Would you believe it's because I don't want to wait?" He held up his hands as if asking for forgiveness over the comment.

Smiling, Pete stated. "Hey, it isn't like the cleaning supplies and stationery are top secret items."

"And you think _I'm_ the one with a gift for stating the obvious," Artie replied with a quick twist of his lips. Turning to Myka, he added, "But I'll give you a explanation anyway. I want everything inside and accounted for so I won't have to worry about doing it later in the day. Pure and simple. So let's get to it." He reached for another box. Pulled it toward him, and…

"Oh God! No!" Artie croaked hoarsely.

There was a scrabbling sound from somewhere in front of him, between the boxes. He started to backpedal and turn at the same time, His arm rose up to cover his face. And then Myka and Pete were bombarded by a strong, noxious scent of petroleum.

"Aaagghhh!" bellowed Artie, already stripping off his maroon and gold striped shirt. "Pete, Myka, Run!"

"What is it?" they both asked not moving like their boss had asked. The smell was growing stronger and more awful with each passing second.

"Do I really need to spell it out?" he gasped, trying unsuccessfully to block the stench with both hands cupped over his nose and mouth.

Then Myka saw movement. Something small was shifting among the boxes. Something black and white and furry.

"Oh my God!" Myka cried in horror. And then she stated the obvious. "Skunk!"

Then she ran for the truck, hopped in the cab and hunted for the keys. She wasn't about to touch the beastie unless someone's life depended on it, which, in this case, it didn't. Of course, there were no keys.

"Pete?"

"Yeah?"

"How good are you at hotwiring something? Quickly?"

Pete gave the truck a wide berth and climbed in the other side. After looking at the ignition a second, he raced to his own vehicle, fumbled around in the back for a couple of seconds and ran back. Bestowing a quick and devilish grin on her, he got out a small impact tool, screwed it into the ignition, then popped the whole cylinder mechanism out.

"After you," he told her gesturing at the destroyed ignition switch.

After turning it quickly, Myka heard the old Chevy truck engine roar to life. She quickly threw it into gear and got the truck moving out of there, boxes, unwanted passenger and all. She drove it about a quarter mile up the road, killed the engine, and ran back to the Warehouse.

She heard Artie yelling before she actually saw him.

"Of all the stupid—" he started to say, followed by loud gagging noises. "I can't believe—uh—"

"Should I run out and buy a drum full of tomato juice?"

Right hand waving frantically, Artie grunted, "Won't work."

Pete started pacing back and forth until he saw Artie drop to his knees. He slid to a quick stop, mental wheels turning furiously. And then he got a bright idea. Running to the hidden panel he knew existed on the exterior front wall of the Warehouse, he activated the release on the hatch and yanked open the door. Recessed inside was the object he sought. Without hesitation, he grabbed the familiar old fashioned straight nozzle and hose and tugged. The reel rotated with a grating squeal, released the remainder of the hose.

He aimed the hose at Artie and drew back the lever expecting a spray of water to gush out. At that very moment, Artie looked up at him to see what all the noise was about and saw the nozzle. His eyes grew saucer round, and he called, "No!" but it was too late. Thick purple goo spurted out, catching Artie not just in the face but splashing into his open mouth. That started a fresh round of gagging, not to mention spitting.

"Do you have any idea what-?" he began to say but couldn't get the rest out as he shivered with dread. He knew from first hand experience what swallowing that stuff would do.

But the worst was yet to come. The mildly offensive odor of neutralizer. mixed with the totally noxious stink of Au d' Skunk, formed a fulminating and overwhelming miasma so foul that everyone in the immediate vicinity instantly began to retch.

Struggling to get back to his feet, Artie swayed, grimaced, and gazed cross-eyed at 'something'. Purple goo drooled down his tee-shirt and slacks, puddling at his feet.

Freaking over his mistake and feeling like he was going to puke any second, Pete ran back to the hatch, located the second hose reel, grabbed the larger, more modern nozzle and opened the valve. This time he got the desired result. Water spewed out, drenching the hapless Nielsen…again. Thankfully the water managed to dilute the neutralizer, alleviating at least some of the stink. Lattimer began gating back the flow of water and got another surprise. Nothing happened. Or rather something unexpected happened. Rather than decreasing the flow of water, the nozzle began barraging Artie with incredible force.

Grunting with effort, Pete tried to close the lever but backpressure was so great it not only wouldn't budge but forced him backward on the slimy ground. Then the nozzle slipped from his grasp. He tried to grab it but it squirmed away, hitting the ground with a thump.

Myka knew what was coming. She'd seen enough fires in her hometown to know what happened if an open hose got away from a firefighter. Pete, though young when his firefighting father was killed, had also seen the results of such an accident.

As expected the hose started furiously whipping side to side. The straight stream barreled into Artie's shins on one such pass, knocking his legs out from under him. He belly flopped onto the soft sodden ground and got a face full of mud. Water continued to knife into him like a high powered oscillating sprinkler. Both agents heard him coughing and struggling for air as the nozzle swung his way again and again.

Desperate to put a stop to the insanity, Pete jumped on the hose at the point nearest the Warehouse hatch and started crawling over it toward the writhing 'knob', as his dad often called it. His body rode the cotton jacketed hose like it was a rodeo bronc and took a beating for his efforts. It almost threw him loose a few times which was not normal. This wasn't a large diameter line, inch and half, maybe inch and three quarters at most, and one full grown, strong guy should have regained control of it quickly just by the weight and strength of his own body.

"Shut off valve, Myka!" he hollered at his partner. "See if you can shut it down that way.

He didn't see her run over to the hatch because the wild ride was making him tired and dizzy. Copious amounts of water were still deluging Artie and the poor guy had gone limp. Pete grew more desperate.

"Myka?" he hollered again.

"Not letting me shut it off!" she called back, a frantic note in her voice.

"Can you uncouple it?"

"No. What about your end?" She ran over to Artie, trying to drag him clear. What she ended up with was a thoroughly drenched body. And Artie, who always swore he needed a diet, was simply too heavy to drag through the slippery mud. Instead, she wound up flat on her behind next to him, her hands raised to protect her face. Unable to do anything more constructive for Artie, she used her body to block as much of the water as she could. Her skin screamed at the assault and her nose burned from skunk scent, but she stuck by him just the same.

Grabbing the hose just behind the nozzle, Lattimer tried to unscrew the brass coupling there but the pressure was too great. Or maybe something else was wrong. He didn't know and he didn't care. The only thing he truly wanted at that moment was for the water to stop flowing and nothing he was doing helped matters.

The intense pressure within the houseline solved their problems for them. The white cotton jacket burst open. Great volumes of water geysered upward like an erupting volcano. The fountain hit Pete in the chest sending him skyward for a second. He landed with a loud squishy splat in the mud and instinctively rolled out of the way. He threw his hands over his head to protect it, just in case the nozzle was dragged his way. And then he realized that something had altered. There was no noise but some dripping followed by coughing and spluttering from a male and female voice.

Cautiously, Pete looked around and realized the 'serpent' had died, split open like a gutted eel, the water pooling deep within it but no longer a threat. Getting up on his knees he started to crawl toward the drenched figures of his partner and his boss, neither of whom were moving. But then the overpowering scent hit him and he halted all forward momentum.

"Myka?" he inquired, silently praying he wouldn't have to get closer.

"Good grief," she muttered, sounding like Charlie Brown for a second. "He stinks!"

"You didn't touch him did you?"

Myka started to roll away but used her light jacket to nudge Artie. "Of course not! You think I want purple goo and skunk odor all over me?" Artie groaned and stirred. By that point, she had risen to her feet.

"Damn, that's the worse smelling stuff I've ever had the misfortune to experience. I mean, they should bottle it and use it as a secret weapon instead of bombs and guns."

Standing on wobbly legs, Pete arched his body over to stare at his boss. Nielsen had rolled over flat onto his back and was staring, unblinking, up at the sky. A look of horror was plastered over his face and his began breathing in great shuddering breaths as if he were viewing something truly terrifying.

"Remember what he said about the goo?" Myka asked Pete, watching the rapid rise and fall of Artie's chest. At least he wasn't choking on water, or gagging on neutralizer and skunk smell anymore but, judging from the way the muscles in his face writhed, this was infinitely worse.

"Vaguely," answered Lattimer. "He said something that well, made me think of having visions of unpleasant stuff. So I get ya, that's what's happening now, but whatta we do? I mean, I didn't think there was an antidote or he would have said so in the first place."

Myka decided to confirm that. "No antidote. Nothing mentioned in the manual either. Guess we just have to let this wear off." Pity overwhelmed her but she really didn't know how to help him and it pained her to admit it.

"How long?"

"No idea," she replied uncertainly. "What I do know is that I plan on setting up a makeshift tent to protect him from the sun, after I find a gas mask, and then I'm going to get upwind and wait it out with him."

"Make that two gas masks and I'll help ya."

"Deal!" she said, heading toward the entrance to the Warehouse.

They maintained their vigil over Artie as he lay flat on his back under a makeshift canopy. They came to the conclusion, after watching him, that whatever he was seeing, it wasn't pleasant. His eyes, when they did open, showed mostly white. His back arched as if he was in agony, his fingers closed into fists and slowly uncurled. During those periods, his breathing was labored and punctuated by soul-shriveling moans.

"I can't stand watching this," Myka muttered for the fourth time as she paced a small distance away. The wind was shifting and the stench of skunk was starting to drift her way again.

Pete rose languidly to his feet and rubbed an itchy spot near the cleft in his chin. "When he told us not to ingest any of that neutralizer, he wasn't kidding."

"We were exposed to it. Remember when Artie showered us in it a while ago?" recalled Myka with a slight frown, her shapely brows knitting together. "And nothing happened to us."

"That's because it was dumped on our heads and Artie warned us it was gonna happen. Whatever got in my mouth, I just spit back out." Pete explained. "But I squirted a lot of it directly down his throat."

"What do you suppose he's experiencing," she finally asked after changing positions so she could no longer smell the oppressive odor.

Watching Artie's private battle with unseen and perhaps long dead demons, Pete stated dully, "I don't know but I hope I never have to find out." He looked back at Nielsen and said softly. "I can't believe I did this to him."

"You didn't mean to," she consoled him. "And I'm sure Artie will forgive you…eventually."

"Thanks for the comforting words," he replied, his voice ripe with sarcasm.

About twenty minutes later, the guys who'd brought the truck returned and got the shock of their lives when they saw the moved vehicle and smelled the odoriferous spot on the bed of the truck. The culprit, however, was gone, presumably looking for greener pastures…literally. Soon after, Artie woke up, exhausted, emotionally wrung dry, but functioning, at least until he got another whiff of himself. He turned a bit green around the gills, as the old saying went, but he managed to hold it together.

The first words out of his mouth weren't a scathing analysis of Pete's handling of the incident as both agents had expected but a surly set of orders to the supply truck workers. "Get that stuff off there and stack it on the landing at the bottom of the stairs. Now!" He shuffled over to his agents who instinctively backed up. "I have a job for you two." He paused to take several short clipped breaths. "First, Pete, have Claudia check out the hoses to see if she can find a reason for their malfunctioning. Second, there's a small watering trough in the warehouse-."

"An artifacty water trough?" Pete mused aloud wondering about the absurdity of such a thing and trying to figure out just what it did.

"No," growled Artie. "It's for neutralizing larger artifacts. The original agents used it before they brought in those barrels you've seen around. But I'm gonna put it to a better use right now. It's near the elevator. Can't miss it. Drag it over to the men's bathroom…the one with the shower. Myka, I need you to get me some things from the supply room. Ready?"

Nodding, she said, "Sure, go ahead."

Artie coughed and made a face before saying, "Several gallon jugs of water, a box of baking soda, some bottles of that 3% hydrogen peroxide, and some dish liquid which you can find by the sink if you don't want to hunt down the bigger bottle and a clean sponge, as in brand new and still in the wrapper." As he spoke, he ticked the items off on his fingers. "Oh, and also a bucket. I'm sure there are towels in the bathroom…or did Claudia forget to replace them after her last mishap?"

Myka shrugged. "As far as I know she did. But I can always run back to the B&B if she didn't."

Seemingly satisfied with the answer, Artie commanded Pete, "I'm going to avoid touching anything but the supplies. Therefore you will open the doors for me. Understood?"

Racing ahead of them, Myka began digging up the supplies and had them all in the main bathroom by the time Pete arrived with the trough slung over a heavy-duty dolly. "Here it is boss!" Lattimer said with a grunt as he pulled the metal trough off the dolly and let it slam to the tiled floor. Already, the stink was weighting down the air in there. "Want me to fill it with water?" he asked gallantly while holding his nose. It came out sounding more like "Wan me t' fill't wi' watuh?"

Shaking his head, Artie replied, "Thanks, but no. I need to do something else. Just push it near the sink, if you don't mind."

Myka wandered in a minute later, but not without knocking first. She was already sick to her stomach from smelling skunk and goo all day and had no desire to add insult to injury by seeing her boss 'in the altogether', as her mother used to say.

"Yeah, okay, get in here already!" Artie hollered irritably.

She strolled in, towing an ancient wire shopping cart loaded with the supplies he asked for. "Found everything you asked for. Now what?"

"Now you both get out," was all he said as he began to unbutton his shirt, which flew into an open trashcan a few seconds later. Myka needed no more encouragement than that. Pete didn't need any further coaxing either and quickly followed her.

Once alone, Artie finished stripping, mentally griped about the loss of the clothes, but he had no intention of trying to clean them. He quickly mixed the first batch of solution in the bucket and waited on it to begin fizzing which happened quickly. He dropped the sponge in it, quickly swished it around to mix more thoroughly.

Stepping into the trough, he began vigorously lathering up, head to toe, with the mixture which possessed a unique stink all its own. Once that was finished, he dumped the remainder of the liquid onto his hair and massaged it thoroughly into his scalp. Then he stood there, shivering and feeling very vulnerable for roughly ten minutes until he was reasonably sure the musk had been cleansed from his skin.

During that waiting period, he took the opportunity to look around him, something he never did under ordinary circumstances. The men's bathroom/shower area looked like those located in a billion other commercial facilities with the exception of neutralizer conduit running through the ceiling. Like blood in a body, the goo served as both life-force and waste transport for the Warehouse, creating an umbrella of protection all around the building. It wasn't flawless as everyone knew. Tangential energies built up all the time, sometimes powerful enough to overpower the systems. For the most part it functioned well, he concluded, as he pondered the effectiveness of both the neutralizing systems in the Warehouse and the musk neutralizing concoction drying on his body.

Once time was up, he filled the bucket with water from the sink and began rinsing everything off. That required dumping several buckets over himself but finally the initial phase was done.

Tentatively, he took a couple of whiffs of his arms and hands. Still there but very faint, he decided. So he made another bucket full of the mixture and applied it in the shower because by then he was sure he wasn't going to taint the plastic enclosure. After the third round, he declared himself stink free and gladly muscled the trough over to shower and slowly poured the solution down the drain.

After doing a quick sponging and final rinse of the trough itself, he wrapped one large towel around his waist and another one around his shoulders. Cautiously, he peeked out the door and looked around, left then right and repeated it, glancing through the shelving to make sure no one was in sight. There was a small locker room between the bathrooms and he raced into it. Extremely relieved to find no one in there, he opened his locker and pull out a spare set of clothing which was always there, just in case. Getting skunked wasn't initially on that 'just in case' list but now he was glad to have those clothes handy.

Claudia finally got back downstairs and asked Pete, "So, how'd it go?"

Pete and Myka were seated before Artie's computer, staring at nothing but a blank wall with a door in the middle. Claudia recognized it as the locker room door and she waited for an explanation, her eyebrows raised to encourage more information. They both gave her sheepish looks.

Maintaining a straight face, Pete took the initiative to explain, "Well, Artie is now officially de-skunked, I presume, cuz I just saw him skate out of the bathroom, do a little dance-floor grinding, and then go streaking through the Warehouse."

Rightfully so, Claudia turned a skeptical eye on him. "So you're saying he's out there now, running around like a crazy man, sans clothing."

"Something like that," Pete affirmed solemnly.

Claudia grimaced at the imagery skittering through her brain. "And what section would this be, so I can make sure to avoid it."

"Ancient Greece. Guess he knew he'd fit in over there." A smile was screaming for release, but Lattimer corralled it, though the task wasn't easy.

"Yeah, right," the teenager said, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms.

"What, don't you believe me?" "Pete asked innocently.

"Dude, face it. There's _no way_ Artie would ever get crazy enough to run naked through the Warehouse. And I can buy someone my age grinding on the dance floor but an uptight, overweight, 55 year old guy? I don't think so!"

At that moment, Artie was seen on the monitor, walking out of the locker room, fully dressed in his usual stodgy, old man clothing; a button down shirt over dark T, loose fitting trousers, light weight knit vest, and argyle socks. She particularly noted those because he was shoeless, his ancient and decrepit Converses probably now dead and buried thanks to the beating they'd just taken.

By the time Artie strode into the office, the monitors had been powered down and the security cameras reset to their default positions. Silently, Pete thanked the ever-prepared Myka for _that_ suggestion because he would have forgotten, and he certainly didn't want Artie knowing they were spying on him.


	5. Chapter 5

**oooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 5**

**oooooooooo**

Several days later, Artie was seated before those same monitors, hard at work tabulating data on the catatonia victims.

"Any luck?" Myka said after finally working up the courage to ask the obvious question.

"Some."

"Care to share?"

This time Artie looked straight at her and she saw him squinting slightly as his eyes adjusted to being shifted away from the computer monitor. "I'm doing more than just looking into information about similar victims. I'm also cross referencing them by location, history of mental illness in the family and correlating that with dates of death for family members…" Seeing Myka's confused expression, he added, "Inheritances yield unusual objects as you well know."

"How likely is it that you can trace all this back to one object being inherited a while ago?"

"Not very, but in the absence of another course of action, I'm trying it anyway. And I'm looking for clusters of occurrences."

"You mean, groupings of people who fit the description suddenly increasing in a certain area," Myka stated.

"Precisely. Essentially statistical analysis of incidences within certain regions over pre-set lengths of time."

Myka bent over his shoulder to study the screen and his fingers lightly caressing the large charcoal gray tablet. "In other words if only 2 cases are reported in 5 years in an urban setting and suddenly there are 15 reported in the last two months, you are flagging those locations."

"Exactly," he said happily.

"Will that help us zoom in on the artifact itself?"

"Hopefully. For instance, look at the recent occurrences in the Los Angeles area. These fit the pattern." He pointed at the screen. "To date, only LA is reporting a slight increase in these types of patients and medical records indicate that most of the new admits bear what appears to be stab wounds. Of course we knew this already." Further investigation shows that there have been clusters of these occurrences at other times in other cities, but only one city at a time. Presumably our wielder of the artifact is moving around so as to avoid attracting undue attention to himself…or herself."

"And that means it's likely there is only one artifact rather than several of the same kind."

Artie exhaled loudly. "That's typically the case. It's unusual for the maker of dangerous artifacts to produce many of them. No, I suspect we are looking at one knife and one only. Which is a darn good thing given what the ill effects of this particular object are."

At Artie's behest, Pete and Myka made a trip to LA Metro Hospital to speak to the attending physicians of several of these patients. After collecting the data, they returned to the Warehouse, or in this case, the B&B and sat down with Artie to divulge their findings.

"Speak to me," was all Nielsen had said as he flopped down into his chair after pouring a bunch of scones onto a country patterned china plate.

Myka threw her shoulder bag onto the table after first dumping her overnighter onto the foyer floor near the front door. It had landed on Pete's duffel with a loud thump but she had just kept on walking toward their conference-dining-game playing table and lithely settled into another chair. Now, she ignored everything but her superior even though she was sorely tempted by the delectable, warm scones calling her name. She did, however, accept a cup of coffee from Artie who had prepared three of them and simply set them down before their usual spots. Several flavored creamers had been placed out and she couldn't resist the crème brulee so she placed a small dollop of it into her cup.

"Sugar," Pete tsked at Myka and dumped a steady stream of chocolate caramel creamer into his.

She picked up the creamer as if perusing the contents for the first time…not true…and with a great show, dumped more of it into her cup. "No, really?"

"Come on, the trip wasn't _that_ stressful!"

"It wasn't stressful at all," she responded with some emphasis, "only pointless." She took a sizeable and deliberate bite of a scone just to show her frustration. She chewed quickly and swallowed noisily. "Probably only telling Artie what he already knows."

"Never can tell, you might surprise me," Artie encouraged.

"Not likely," Pete said around his pastry. That brought a quick flash of a smile to Artie's lips.

"Oh get real," Claudia said, bouncing into the sunroom. "I surprise him all the time." She snagged a pastry with lightning quick hands, did the moonwalk, or an approximation of it, away from them and disappeared. The door slammed after her but not before they heard her calling, "Knock knock?"

Thick brows lowering over large eyes, Artie glowered in her general direction for all of three seconds, then they watched his face morph into its let's-get-down-to-business expression.

"Go on, give it to me," he said after swallowing another bite of the delicious pastry and licking off a stray crumb from his lower lip.

Somehow, Myka noted, he'd managed to eat the thing without getting food trapped in his mustache. But that thought reminded her she had no idea what she looked like. After scanning the table, she delicately ran fingers around her own shapely mouth, hoping there was nothing there. There wasn't. _Guys!_ she muttered to herself in frustration. _Why bring out napkins when a sleeve or hand would do just as well_.

Leaning back, Pete swept a hand in front of him, a request for her to start. She figured that'd be the case after viewing the bulging of his right cheek where an overlarge piece of pastry was being chewed.

"Fine. I can summarize this. The docs are stumped. There was speculation of poisons or some other substance or pathogen on the knife that got introduced, obviously, into the bloodstream. But the tests and cultures were all clean. What you have is a group of people, both sexes, seemingly healthy on the preceding days of their lives prior to the stabbing, suddenly going catatonic and no one knows why. There's been no improvement in any of them aside from the wounds healing in a timely fashion."

In a distinctly bored manner, Myka quoted all of this without checking her notes. "I also got a more detailed lesson on what causes the catatonic state, the variations between them, and treatment options thanks to this one doctor who loves to exposit as much as you do."

One of Artie's eyebrows, the right one to be specific, shot upward at that but he didn't berate her. No doubt it was true. He didn't delude himself into thinking he never got carried away when teaching others. The very people he'd supervised for better than a decade had teased him about this very thing so often it had gotten as annoying to him as his teaching methods had been to them.

"Anything else?" he asked, placing his chin in the palm of his hand, hoping his pleading look would yield better results.

"Not really," Pete was finally able to respond.

Artie blew out a heavy breath through his nose. "Okay, that's pretty much what I figured." He shuffled through the papers he'd brought with him, as well as opening some books marked by pastel shaded Post-It Notes. In this case, they were mostly green.

"Here's what I have found, and I dare say I've been a bit more successful in my searches than you have been." He stopped suddenly and looked at Myka. "That's not a criticism by the way."

Myka knew that and blew it off with a gentle wave of her hand.

"There have been patterns—" he started to say when a loud rolling thunder clap sounded from outside.

"That's odd," Pete stated, standing up. "The forecaster said there would be no hint of rain for several days and it was sunny when we rolled in."

"He's right," Myka told her boss, standing up as well and following Pete outside. Perplexed, Artie followed. He scanned the sky and watched dark clouds floating overhead, growing more dense as they watched. Most of Univille was soon under these clouds but the heaviest concentration appeared to be over their sector.

Running out to the Jaguar, Artie struggled with getting the ragtop up and the windows raised before the downpour started. He'd just succeeded in getting it secured when the sky opened up. The wind howled and the clouds suddenly released their moisture in the form of a deluge of Noahic proportions.

Wisely, Pete and Myka had ducked back inside the moment the first few fat drops had fallen. But Artie hadn't been given the same option.

Already drenched, Nielsen stood there, glancing upward, the enormous drops bouncing off his glasses and skin like they were superballs. His tight curls had been plastered to his skull. Scalp showed through. His light blue shirt had turned almost navy, his gray pants now charcoal. Both molded to his body as if he'd just plunged into a pool. Or the FISH pond.

He started to slog toward them, looking miserable and pathetic. And then an amazing thing happened. They lost sight of him as the rain increased to waterfall proportions. When he didn't materialize from between the moving silver curtains, Pete started to walk out there. He was instantly bombarded by droplets that felt as if they were the size of golf balls. The rain tried to force him to his knees but his muscular legs and strength resisted the assault. Surprisingly, Myka, looking like a drowned cat, managed to catch up to him though she grunted slightly with the effort and she had to shield her mouth to keep water from pouring in it.

"Artie!" they both hollered into the wind and the storm, squinting through the torrent of water. Attempts to spot the car or their boss through the pelting droplets failed.

The closer they got to Artie's last known position, the harder the rain pounded, so that it was literally like being assaulted with thousands of tiny hammers. Pete repeatedly spit water from his mouth and forged on, Myka at his side. The deluge had hit so hard and sudden that the ground was unable to absorb it and though the lawn was level, water was literally around their ankles by the time they had moved seventy five feet from the house.

"Maybe he got in the car," Myka hollered.

"Maybe," Pete agreed, hoping that was the case. But he knew better. His vibes had started hollering at him from the minute the rain had started. Only his confusion had kept him from immediately reacting but then they'd literally started screaming at him. No, if Artie had been inside the vehicle, dry and more importantly safe, he wouldn't have felt such intense panic deep in his gut.

Eventually, they caught a glimpse of something red and angled toward it. But there was no sign of Artie on the ground. And then Myka saw a sight she'd never forget. Inside the water-filled car, Artie was facing her, large round eyes even larger and wider than she thought possible, his fists pounding at the windows. Contorting his body within the tight confines of the vehicle, he rolled over onto his back. Head and shoulders sinking below view, his feet began flailing at the ragtop which bulged with each kick but refused to rip open or pop off.

Both agents reached the vehicle at the same time and began trying to rip open doors and the convertible top but to no avail. Pete's vibes seriously ramped up to nearly incapacitating levels. Under ordinary circumstances things like this didn't happen. But Univille really did deserve to be called Bizarreboro instead. And nobody knew it better than the Warehouse staff, especially when a car that should have been a cinch to break into was sealed up tighter than a canning jar.

"Now, I know something's very wrong here!" Pete called to Myka. "Cuz that ain't natural!"

Bering just groaned her agreement and ran around to the other side of the car where she tried to unsnap the top. "Where's Mr. Chainsaw when you really need him!" she yelled back.

Planting his feet on the front fender, Lattimer grabbed the door handle and heaved. He saw Artie maneuver around inside the car until his hard-soled shoes came in contact with the door and began kicking in conjunction with Pete's efforts. At first nothing happened but then the mechanism broke with a loud snap, the handle breaking off in the process. Artie's heel hit the door with another dull thud. The door popped open and a soaked, choking body slid out like a raft riding the rapids. He squirmed, looking like a fish on the bank of a stream, gasping for breath, drawing in great lungfuls of air.

And then, as suddenly at it had started, the downpour eased up to a slow drizzle. Within a minute it had ceased entirely. Soon after, the clouds began to break up.

Neither Pete nor Myka took a lot of time trying to encourage Artie to get off the now muddy ground. But his strength was almost gone. They each grabbed an upper arm and tried to lift him. Artie did stagger to his feet, still doubled over and coughing, but he slipped in the muddy slicked grass and fell flat onto his stomach, not once but twice, before they were able to half walk, half drag him to the sunroom doors.

Myka ran upstairs to grab towels after encouraging him to remove his shoes. The new B&B caretaker was far more unobtrusive than Leena had been but she was just as fussy and would have been notably unhappy if mud had been tracked all over her rugs.

By the time Myka returned with the plush blue towels, Artie had removed both shoes and the socks beneath them. She handed him one of the towels.

Rubbing his hands over the muddy shirt, now dyed reddish brown, Artie muttered in disgust, "This is never going to come out," and began unbuttoning it. He wore a black tee-shirt beneath it which may have been equally soaked and muddy but didn't show it quite as much. With careless disregard, Artie tossed the ruined shirt outside where it lay in a crumpled wad.

After bestowing a pain-filled backward glance at his beloved Jag, door still ajar, latch assembly handle on the ground, Artie gingerly danced across the floor on the balls of his wet feet until he reached the stairs. He dragged himself up them, one slow step at a time, and disappeared from sight.

As all this was going on, Pete had remained just within the door frame, scanning the sky, the horizon, the structures around them in plain sight, hoping to notice anything out of the ordinary. Eventually he gave up and sat back down at the table.

"I don't suppose you took a few minutes to further research that death by shower incident, did you?" Myka asked with a touch of playful sarcasm when Artie finally reappeared, looking cleaned up and fully recovered from his near drowning.

"As a matter of fact…no! I had more important matters to attend to," He answered sardonically. "Unfortunately, my instincts say there _may_ be a possible connection between that event and this one. The question is what artifact is the culprit and more importantly—" he hesitated, closing his eyes.

"Why you?" Myka guessed.

"Still…there's a huge distance between here and Malibu," Artie pointed out, clearly thinking aloud. "So what's the connection?"

In the ensuing silence, Pete gave Artie a questioning look and finally inquired, "Aside from that, I was just wondering about something. How'd the water get into your car in the first place?"

"Through the vents, poured in by the buckets full and didn't stop. It was like the car became sealed up tight. I tried to get out…obviously…with no success."

"Much like the Malibu shower door," Myka replied, reinforcing her initial supposition.

"Or the malfunctioning fire hose," added Pete as if in afterthought as he unconsciously rubbed the part of his neck still sore from whiplash injuries caused by his wild ride on the hose.

Artie's hands fluttered in front of his stomach. "Yes, yes, I've already agreed there may be a link between both incidents and we'll keep looking into that angle. But I'm more interested in _what_ caused this. The 'why' is secondary."

Shaking his head and grimacing, Pete said, "Sometimes figuring out the 'why' will lead you to the 'what'. You always talk about connections. Did you have any common factors with the California dude?"

"I don't kn—"

"Is the person carrying the artifact on the move?"

"Maybe, but-

"Are they attacking men only or are chicks also targeted?

"I can't -"

"Are these attacks accidental and random or intentional?"

"Pete!"

"Do you smell fudge?"

"I—"

"Because I sure as hell do!"

"Stop!" Artie hollered, hands thrust out before his chest. "Just shut up for a second because I can't hear myself think when you do that."

Smirking, Pete let it rest. He'd made his point, raised some good questions, and left it in Artie's hands to sort through when he had the time. But there was one final question he wanted to ask.

"Hey!"

Looking slowly back to Lattimer, a frown on his face, hands splayed on his hips, Artie waited. "What now?"

"Did your life flash before your eyes?"

Perplexed, Artie's brows drew together creating a deep furrow between his eyes. He looked down at the floor in contemplation. When he answered, his soft voice was weighted with grief and regret. "Not quite and I'm glad because it would have been a more painful ordeal than drowning." Then he glanced back up and fixed Pete with a direct stare. "You probably saved my life…thanks."

Pete lightly backhanded him in the chest. "'ay, no problemo, man! You wouldn't hesitate to do the same for me." He spoke those words with such conviction that Artie didn't need to do more than nod in acknowledgement.


	6. Chapter 6

**oooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 6**

**oooooooooo**

The search for answers to the catatonic patients was slow in coming. There wasn't much to work with. Artie had taken several ancient and musty tomes back to the B&B with him and settled into his 'official' residence upstairs, a spacious set of rooms, much like a loft, on two levels. The first level had a regular living room with all the amenities except a kitchen. The only annoyance was that the one master bath was upstairs off the bedroom. But he'd learned to accept this small inconvenience over the years. These rooms had been vacated by the last head of the Warehouse who had been 'retired' to a nice little psychiatric hospital near his family in San Francisco. Artie, most senior agent by that time, had quickly laid claim to it because it had made him feel less claustrophobic than the tiny room he'd first been assigned.

An act of rebellion had coaxed him into buying a home about ten miles from the Warehouse so he could hole up when he truly wanted to be undisturbed but he rarely used it since so many of his waking hours were absorbed with Warehouse business…like now. So he had laboriously carried the stack of books upstairs, settled himself sideways on the leather sofa and began to scan the pages. Sadly, after several hours, only a few pages had been marked off for further study but down in the recesses of his mind a tiny glimmer of understanding expanded. He could feel himself getting closer to the truth. That thought helped his mind, typically racing in high gear, adopt a more ordered, contemplative state.

Once done with those books, he restacked them and carried them to his recently-repaired car. Not much time passed before he was back at the Warehouse and reshelving his reference materials.

"How's it coming?" he eventually asked a mildly cussing Claudia.

Her fingers flew over the keyboard even faster than Artie could normally manage. "Just call me Hermione Granger cuz I really am the best whiz kid of my age."

"Doesn't sound like it, Hermione," responded Artie with a slight smirk as she released another mild expletive.

"Yeah, well, I'm downloading as much information as I could find on Mr. Craphead like you asked and let me tell you, the dude wasn't all that nice of a guy."

That caught Artie's attention. "So the guy who died in the shower was a trouble maker?"

"Tch, hell yeah. Successful, good-looking, user and abuser of the opposite sex. Got arrest records for battery on both guys and girls."

Turning on his own computer, Artie sat down in the clear plastic chair before it and swung to face Claudia and her laptop, studying her screen even though he couldn't see what was on it clearly.

"You're telling me the guy was a first class loser. Okay. You saying someone snuffed him for revenge?"

"Wouldn't surprise me," Claudia muttered humorlessly, clearly thinking the guy deserved what he got.

Artie started searching for something on his own computer, gliding fingers over the black touch tablet and positioning information for later use. "And have you discovered how that ties in to the problems with the fire nozzle and the car?"

"Nothing wrong with either of them now. The opposite door on the Jag opens like it should. The nozzle wasn't stuck open, the lever moved smoothly although I did hit it with WD-40 anyway. And I was thinking more about all this. I mean, what about the FISH and it moving unexpectedly, dumping you in the lake? Maybe the issue isn't with the equipment. Maybe we should focus on the _element_ involved in each case."

That got Artie's attention. "By element you mean water?"

"Yeah, that's precisely what I mean," she replied caustically then cleared her throat when she realized she was sounding entirely too much like her boss and mentor.

She sighed then, using those few brief moments to purge the tension from her mind and muscles. Artie had put her on the Death by Shower investigation while he pursued the catatonia cases and she felt she had a great idea about the artifact causing the trouble if not the reason for it being used as it was. But she wanted to dig up a few more facts before presenting them to Artie who always wanted as much information as he could get before coming to a conclusion. He was more than competent enough to act with only gut feelings guiding him if necessary but clearly he preferred information to instinct. So she kept her own counsel.

As if reading her direction of thought, he nodded and said, "When you have something concrete for me, let me know." He turned away from her and continued on his own research assignment.

Not long after, Artie was interrupted by someone clearing their throat. "Yes, Claudia?" he asked mildly, hiding his irritation over the interruption.

"I've been cooped up in here since early this morning. Let's take a break…say a nice creamy and milk chocolaty break. My taste buds are screaming for some Chunky Monkey at the ice cream parlor. Why don't you come with cuz I hate going out to eat on my own."

"Why? So you can watch everyone else get fat and gloat about how you never put on a pound later on? Pete has to run his off. Myka eats hers one spoonful at a time over ten days. I just look at it and have visions of my doctor tripling my Lipitor!"

"Guilt trips are so unfair, Artie," she said, batting her eyes pleadingly at him. "But I promise I won't do that to you…this time. And I solemnly swear not to tell your doctor either although it would be a great idea if I did because I've seen her and she's really cute. Have you found out if she's single? Maybe she needs a challenge." Her mouth was running a turbo speeds as her mind groped for whatever argument would get him out of the Warehouse and on his way to Ben & Jerry's franchise.

"Claudia!" Artie bellowed then immediately turned the volume down. When he did speak, it was clearly with great restraint. "Don't even think about matchmaking, especially not with her. And since we're on this subject, I'll tell you that I'm stuck seeing her because the Warehouse has given her special clearance to treat personnel. Otherwise I would be going to a physician who is older, calmer, and has fewer despotic tendencies!"

Ignoring his tirade, she turned those round pleading eyes on him and added in a wheedling tone, "Pretty please? Beautiful day for a ride…"

A gusty sigh escaped Artie's lips. "Fine, fine. But we get back here and back to work when we're finished," he admonished half-heartedly as the craving for ice cream overrode all other thoughts.

Racing him through the umbilicus and up the stairs, and winning by a considerable distance, Claudia hopped into the Jaguar, impatiently awaiting Artie's arrival. He finally got there, dropping into the seat heavily enough to jounce the leaf springs, and inserted the key into the ignition. Then they were roaring up the dirt road to the main highway.

Ragtop down, they took up a leisurely pace toward Univille. As they were passing over a small bridge spanning a dry wash, a sound broke through normal road noises. It was strident, decidedly female, and most definitely panicked.

Artie hit the brakes and slowed down to a crawl, swiveling his head from side to side, trying to pinpoint the direction it came from. Beside him Claudia did the same. The scream issued forth again and the teenager pointed to his left. Nodding, Artie pulled off onto the right shoulder, got out of the car, crossed the road and looked over the rail. He saw nothing.

"I told you to stay in the car," Artie chastised her as she joined him.

"Don't act so surprised. When do I ever listen to you?" She laughed then, high and happy as if disobeying Artie was one of life's greatest joys.

A deep bear-like rumble issued from Artie's throat in answer. "I'm going down there to check it out." He pointed up the wash which was bone dry and certainly didn't reveal any screaming women. "I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to stay here, wouldn't it?" he asked wearily, already anticipating her response.

"Definitely too much," she affirmed with a smile and illustrated her point by jogging to the end of the bridge. She disappeared down the embankment.

Artie jogged after her, muttering words under his breath that were best left unvoiced, especially if she were still nearby, hidden from view just below him. And then he smiled unexpectedly when he realized that he hadn't been much different from her when he was 19. His own father would have undoubtedly uttered similar words if he'd been around to actually know what Artie had been up to at that age.

"Hey, geezer, move it along. That ice cream is still screaming my name!"

Yup, definitely just below him, he realized, as he cautiously slid down the embankment. Like a mountain goat, Claudia ignored her footing, bouncing and sliding on stones like she was on level ground. Together they followed the sound of another scream, this one even more distressed than the last one and definitely near. Ignoring his warnings, Claudia ran up and down the sides of the wash as if she were Shawn White snowboarding at the Olympics, all energy and agility.

It was on one such downward slide that she hit a stone that wouldn't budge and twisted her ankle. She went down with a surprised cry, rolling the rest of the way down. Rushing to her side, Artie inquired into her well-being and after a few seconds of self-assessment, the teen admitted her ankle was a bit sore but the rest of her felt fine. Artie grabbed her foot without asking permission, probably because he knew she'd pretend to have no pain…she really was so much like him…loosened the high laces and felt for swelling. It was there, but not too bad. She'd need to wrap it with an ACE bandage and stay off of it but for the time being her lace-up boots would prevent the swelling from getting worse. After he retightened the laces, she got to her feet with Nielsen's help.

After scanning ahead, Artie murmured gently, "Why don't you get back up there and rest."

"And go on without me?" Claudia asked angrily. She splayed both hands on her hips. "Uh-uh. No way. I'm part of the team now and I'm coming with you!"

Artie looked like he seriously wanted to argue the point but relented after studying her defiant stance. If he left her behind, she'd just follow him anyway. He knew it with complete certainty.

Gesturing with a quick wave of his hand, he began his trek again. Side by side they moved on toward the source of the woman's voice.

Claudia tried to hide her limp from Artie and basically got away with it. Every time he glanced at her, she's grit her teeth and walk normally. Almost continuous sounds were still coming from somewhere ahead and Artie slowed his pace as he monitored a bend in the ravine about one hundred feet away. Suddenly all went silent which caused his eyebrows to kiss over the bridge of his nose.

Gesturing for her to keep back a few paces, he called out, "Anyone need some help here?" He surprised her by reaching under his knit vest and pulling out a Sig Sauer P-226.

"Artie, what are you doing?" she hissed.

"Being prepared. If someone is in trouble and the source of her distress is some crazed psycho, then our yelling has just alerted him to our presence." He scanned the top of embankment which was heavily lined by scrub brush and jagged rocks.

Pausing to focus his senses, he added, "I definitely think I want to get to higher ground. We're too vulnerable down here."

He started to climb up the crumbling sides of the embankment when a dull roar sounded from somewhere in the distance. "What the hell is that?" he asked in a hoarse whisper as he froze in his tracks. Confusion washed over his face as he tried to make some sense out of what he was hearing.

The roaring was growing louder. Terror was written over Claudia's features. She didn't know what was going on but she was afraid just the same.

"Artie?" she asked in a tremulous voice.

Sliding back down the sloped wall, he ran to her, knowing she wasn't going to be able to run on that ankle no matter how much she had pretended it wasn't hurting. He put her arm around his neck and, supporting her, started to walk her toward the hillside. And then the sound reached a crescendo. They both turned to face it. "It" turned out to be a huge wall of water, bearing down on them at an incredible speed.

Only an incredible athlete could have reached safety before that water reached them, which Artie was not, but he hadn't survived as long as he had by being indecisive. Heaving her over his shoulder amidst her vociferous protests, he let the surge of adrenaline power him toward the hillside. He was climbing up it, bearing Claudia's weight successfully until he started sliding backward on the loose dirt and pebbles.

Putting her down and flipping her around, he hollered, "Go, go, go!" Placing one hand down for balance and the other on her butt, he shoved, hard, trying to propel her ahead of him. She didn't argue or protest the liberties he was taking. Ignoring the screaming pain from her ankle, she used all four limbs in a fevered effort to achieve the pinnacle of the wash before the water rolled over them.

Pure unadulterated terror overrode all reason in Claudia's mind. The water was there, almost close enough to touch. Using every ounce of her strength, she rocketed upward. She slipped and lost ground, then frantically scrabbled back up. Suddenly she was forced upward as something pushed with tremendous strength on her heel and then she was at the top. Grabbing the edge of a secure rock, she turned to reach down for Artie and realized he wasn't there.

Fighting against the panic threatening to overwhelm her, she called his name, more a shriek than anything else, and started looking in the direction of the flow. Muddy water swirled and churned just below her, little waves leaping as if they were trying to grab her. Sick to her stomach with fear she kept moving over the pinnacle and clambered to her feet. Starting to run, she kept looking for any sign that Artie was ahead of her. The problem was that the water was a brown as the clothing he typically wore and he would have been indistinguishable if he was …. no she couldn't even think that.

"Artie," she screamed again, panning the width of the turbulent river. And then she saw something. Dark brown, bobbing. Claudia nearly choked on her own relief. She saw him, arms moving in circles, legs kicking, wildly doing the breast-stroke. It was obvious that he was trying to get to shore before the rolling waters pulled him down but he was obviously struggling.

Running like an Olympian sprinter, Claudia charged after him, gasping wildly, ignoring every discomfort, never taking her eyes off her boss. Time was running out, she saw. The bridge was just ahead of him. Clearly he was aware of it because he was fiercely laboring to reach the bank. And then time ran out.

Nielsen saw the bridge pylon looming directly in front of him and arched his torso, fighting to change his direction, but nothing worked. Suddenly, pain tore through every fiber of his body. As if from a great distance, he heard a scream of agony and some vague realization told him it had been uttered by his own throat. Water poured in nose and open mouth, and he felt the cool water close over his head. He struggled to rise and failed. There was a blinding flash of light just before darkness devoured his last conscious thoughts.

From not more than one hundred feet away, Claudia saw Artie's body slam into the concrete pylon and go under. He surfaced briefly, unconsciously reaching out to grab the smooth surface before the waters pulled him back for a split second and then slammed him into the unyielding pillar again. That time, his head sank below the choppy waves and disappeared.

Claudia fought down a rising wave of nausea. And then the tears started to flow. She hadn't shed a tear for anyone or anything since she was a child…except when her parents had died, when her brother Joshua had disappeared, and when she'd pled with Artie to save him so many years later. But at that moment they fell freely, nearly blinding her as she continued to run. Her mind worked furiously, trying to figure out what to do next. She was overcome with a sense of helplessness and dropped to her knees, her panting overpowered by the turbulence of her thoughts. She was out of options. The river had won.

Turning blurry eyes on the spot where Artie went down, she saw something amazing. The water level had dropped. A lot. Then the flow stopped completely, like someone had turned off a spigot. The remainder of the flowing liquid sloshed on by, leaving behind sodden ground, soggy plant life, and the prostrate form of a man wedged up against the bottom of the pylon.

"Artie," Claudia screamed again, this time, praying to any god who would listen. "Please let him be okay, please, please! Don't let him be dead. Artie, don't be dead." Despite the lancing pain from her ankle, she virtually skied down the embankment, hop scotching over rocks strewn about, and once on level ground, ran over to him. Her booted feet sank to the ankles in mud and every step created a wet sucking sound but she didn't let it stop her, even when she fell to her hands and knees.

Finally, she was beside him. Hesitantly, she stretched out trembling fingers and clasped his shoulder. Rolling him onto his back, she checked for signs of life. If they were there, she couldn't readily detect them. His lips had turned a bluish color, his skin had gone nearly gray. "Please, please, please," the litany began again and reached for a carotid pulse.

Something very weak and disorganized pushed at her fingertips and at first she wondered if she was doing this right. Then she heard a faint gurgling and realized he was breathing, erratic and with great difficulty, but nevertheless breathing.

Hollering out in jubilation, she half crawled, half plunged to the wall of the embankment, climbed up and ran for her cell phone. She was met by a man dressed in a Myrtle Beach t-shirt, cargo shorts and Nike's. His face bore sunglasses so she couldn't see his eyes but the rest of his visible expression couldn't be confused with anything other then anxiety.

"You okay?" he asked, grabbing her upper arm as she flipped open her phone. "I called already. I saw your Dad in the water and called for help. Where is he? I looked on the other side but didn't see him come through."

Claudia didn't bother to correct him about the relationship she had with Artie. He was more like a dad than anyone else in her life had been, something she appreciated more than she would ever admit to anyone including him. "He's alive," she said, rushing back to look over the railing. She couldn't see much from that vantage point.

Laying in the mud, Nielsen made a truly pathetic vision and Claudia couldn't stay up on the bridge. He'd stuck with her when things had gotten really bad, risked his own life to help her. She couldn't imagine leaving him down there…alone. So she returned to kneel in the mud beside him, doing the only thing she could do, talking softly to him and holding one cool hand.

In the distance, a siren was growing in volume. She practically sobbed with relief, her breath shuddering in her chest. Less than thirty seconds later, three people came down to the riverbed loaded with orange tackle boxes. Another guy followed a moment or two after that with a large backboard.

Moving out of their way, she let them do their work. The first thing one EMT did was pull open his shirt resulting in buttons popping everywhere, and then he cut right through Artie's tee-shirt. If the situation hadn't been so serious, Claudia would have quipped aloud about how rough the last two weeks had been on his wardrobe. Instead she watched them as they took his vitals, performed a quick EKG and did a complete check of his body with skilled hands, noting the injuries while another person wrote everything down. She dimly registered things words like 'broken ribs' 'dislocated shoulder', 'possible neck and spinal injuries', possible concussion and/or head injury, and some medical phrase with the word aspiration in it. They had started an IV so quickly and efficiently that she had barely seen them do it, although she should have registered it better because they were discussing nearly non-existent veins.

Out of the blue, one of the paramedics hollered, "Respiratory Arrest," and then there was a crazed flurry of movement as packages with tubing was pulled from one orange box. The only woman on the team was speaking into a radio, relaying information, and getting instructions.

"Gotta intubate," one man said, already positioning Artie's mud covered head so that the tube could be inserted. He was good, she had to give him that. In no time at all, he had positioned it properly and was hand pumping air into Artie's struggling lungs.

Claudia began to breathe easier herself. She saw his color go from chalky to pink in less than a minute and something deep down in her heart told her he was going to be fine. She knew it. The alternative was unthinkable and so she refused to go there. He _would_ get well.

"Pupil response is getting better," the woman murmured as she pulled back an eyelid and flashed a penlight back and forth in front of first one eye then the other.

"Let's get him on the backboard and out of here," the leader told the others, so they put on a cervical collar and secured him to the board. In no time at all, they were huffing and puffing up the hill, Artie's prostrate form suspended between them.

Claudia saw them load him in the ambulance, lock the stretcher down, hook the orotracheal tube to an oxygen supply and shut the doors. Soon, with lights strobing, they disappeared into the distance.

Without any hesitation whatsoever, Claudia locked up the Jaguar since the car keys were probably in the ambulance with him, and then phoned the Warehouse for a ride.

The wait for Pete and Myka seemed to take an eternity although, in reality, it was only about ten minutes. Claudia was pacing furiously back and forth when she saw a vehicle racing toward her like demons were hot on their trail. Pete brought the black SUV to a skidding halt. It didn't surprise her one bit that Myka was seated beside him. Without a moment's hesitation, Claudia literally leaped in and hollered at them to hurry.

"Where are they taking him?" Myka asked the most important question after getting filled in on the other medical details.

"Univille Rescue was stenciled on the ambulance so I'm guessing they'll take him to the closest hospital," Claudia informed her and they recklessly broke every speed limit getting there only to end up shocked when they discovered he'd wasn't going to be seen in the ER. What they did see was a medivac chopper lifting off the helipad. They all looked at each other. "Bet they're going to Rapid City's trauma center," Myka supplied. Claudia ran inside to confirm that guess and after getting that confirmation, all three of them turned the SUV toward Rapid City.


	7. Chapter 7

**oooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 7**

**oooooooooo**

Pain, unrelenting and intractable, was the first sensation Artie Nielsen experienced as awareness slowly welled up from the ebony darkness securely cradled him in its embrace. The second sensation, almost as unwelcome as the first, was the feeling that he'd tried to ingest something too big for his throat. He swallowed, trying to encourage it to move faster. Not helping. He tried again, more forceful and then he realized his tongue was hitting something that obviously didn't belong.

Poking and prodding it, his benumbed mind tried to pull together the facts. He tried to recall what had happened to him after trying to push Claudia up the hill. He remembered that much for sure. The rest was blurred. Swimming, sinking, swimming harder, being pulled under again, the bridge looming close. Gasping for air, getting it and water too. The pylons drawing even closer. And the electric shock of pain knifing along every nerve fiber. Then nothing.

He did have a few very brief auditory memories, murmured irregular sounds that may have been voices and a deep thrumming, which now, as his mind started to clear, made him think of the steady whumping of helicopter blades. Airlifted then, he thought. Serious injuries…but how serious?

There were other sounds now. Something in the distance rhythmically hissed. He felt his chest expand without any obvious effort and it disturbed him even though he couldn't quite figure out why.

Slowly, more and more feeling returned. The thing in his mouth and throat was growing more irritating by the minute and his tried using his tongue to push it out…without success.

Sounds were surrounding him that weren't connected to beeping and hissing. Voices reached him, more distinct now, many of them, waxing and waning like they were passing before him. His body grew cold, as if frigid breezes whipped past his skin, and Artie shivered in response. Something soft and warm was laid over his body and his dry lips moved around the tubing as habit prompted him to express his gratitude but no sound came out.

Sleep tried to reclaim him and it was only with monumental effort that he managed to stay awake although a part of him kept thinking that unconsciousness was infinitely preferable to the pain. The tube had definitely grown to obnoxious proportions within his chest. Without thinking, his hand rose to pull at it and met resistance. He tugged harder and found that he couldn't move it more than a few inches. No knowing what the problem was, he switching to the other hand but met with the same problem. He tried creating some form of verbalization, a grunt, a groan, anything to express frustration. Nothing came out.

For the first time since regaining consciousness, Artie tried to open his eyes…and failed. Shaking his head from side to side was pointless but he did it anyway. Finally, after a great deal of concentration, he managed to get his sticky lids to part. Vivid white light lanced right onto his retinas and his body recoiled. Squinting, he slowly let his eyes adapt. Blurry images gradually grew a little sharper and he was immediately sorry. Twisting his head he noted all the monitors. IV poles with several bags suspended hung by the bed with a tube running down to his arm. A PCA pump for automatic administration of pain meds, was lit up. But after thinking about it for all of two seconds, he realized it wasn't doing the job. His head still screamed at him, the ribs on the left side felt like someone stabbed him with every inhalation. Each and every machine-forced breath felt thick as if his lungs had shrunk several sizes. But there was no rebelling against the timed assault on his pulmonary system.

Looking down was an effort but he finally managed and saw the gauze wrapping around his wrists, holding him to rails. A pulse oxymeter was on one finger and a BP cuff encircled his arm. As he watched, he heard it activate and felt the pressure within the cuff as it expanded to near painful levels before it slowly receded.

While he couldn't make a sound, his mind was hollering at him. He already hated that tube. He loathed the straps keeping him from yanking it out, which he surely would have attempted if his body could only move like it should. Yanking angrily at the wrist restraints, he let his head fall back onto the thin pillow. Seconds ticked away, then minutes. Sleep tried to reclaim him several times but not long after his eyes closed he would suddenly jerk awake again.

A couple of nurses and a doctor poked their heads into the room briefly over the next hour. One even stopped to check the drip on the IV, the endotracheal tube, and lung sounds. She promptly left, totally ignoring Artie's pleading, then furious, stares. The anger and resultant surge of adrenaline was lending strength to his muscles but he was powerless to do anything. His thoughts centered on hollering at any doctor who would listen or making supplications to let him get up and out of there. If he was seriously hurt, and technically he knew it was ridiculous to think otherwise, he was certain he'd heal better and faster at home in his own bed.

_You know much I hate hospitals! _ he silently shouted to the heavens. It was a plot to get him back for something, he was sure of it, not bothering to curb his hospital induced paranoia. Dimly, he wondered if Mrs. Frederic had already warned the staff that he'd only allow so many indignities to his person before he 'walked'.

"Mr. Nielsen?"

Oh yeah, he wasn't going to put up with this much longer.

"Mr. Nielsen!" This time the voice was more insistent.

Artie's eyes snapped open. He hadn't even realized he'd closed them. Looking over at the white-coated figure, his eyes narrowed and he glared…mightily. '_Get this out of me_!' his eyes bellowed as his fingers curled into a fist. The doctor, surprisingly, noticed and frowned.

"'Fraid not," the doctor said straight-faced but Artie wasn't fooled. This guy liked torturing people. He could tell these things.

Artie tried to growl. The fact that absolutely nothing came out made him roll his eyes. He made writing motions with the fingers of one hand.

The physician ignored him. "Let's discuss, briefly, what's been going on with you…in layman's terms. Aside from an assortment of contusions and abrasions, bruises and scrapes—"

Artie scowled mightily and twisted his wrist at an impossible angle so that his forefinger was pointing up toward his face.

"—you suffered a minor concussion, several broken ribs, which fortunately didn't damage your lungs although there was some bruising to the tissues there as well..." He consulted the chart in his hand. "Let's see, ah, dislocated shoulder…already fixed by the way…and of course the obvious one, a near drowning experience, hence the orotracheal intubation." He finished the sentence by vaguely gesturing at Artie's neck and chest.

Despite the presence of IV tubing, Artie whacked the left rail with the back of that hand clanging the pulse oxymeter fitted over his index finger. The look in his eyes clearly illustrated how badly he wished he could cough up the very thing the doctor glibly discussed.

The physician walked around the bed, came closer and shone a light in both eyes. "Follow it please," the doctor asked, sounding bored or very tired. Artie looked everywhere else. "Excessive stubbornness might lead me to believe there is something cognitively wrong, Mr. Nielsen." Artie's eyes quickly turned back to him but it didn't stop him from yanking on the rails.

"As would an inordinate level of belligerence," the doctor added.

Visibly deflating, Artie lay back limply as if all the fight had left him.

"Now for the good news. That," he said, pointing at the tube, "can come out soon. Your O2 Sats are looking much better. Oh, and sorry about the restraints."

Artie decided he didn't sound very sorry.

The tall, trim man continued, "We only did this because we didn't want you trying to yank the tube out when you first woke up. Most people try it because, as you've no doubt discovered, it's quite annoying and uncomfortable. Now that you are more alert, I can tell you one very important fact…that tube is held in by an inflated bulb. If you try to take it out, you will rip your lungs out in the process." He smiled, quite evilly, Artie thought, and continued, "so you'll just have to be patient. Give me another forty-five minutes or so while I finish seeing other patients. I'll come back and attend to it then."

With that said, he cut the bandages free of Artie's wrists and tossed them into the refuse cans.

Once again, Nielsen made writing motions and the doctor turned and walked out as if he hadn't understood the request. Eyes narrowing, Artie threw silent curses at his disappearing back, but surprisingly the man returned with a legal size pad and a black marker, which he promptly handed over.

"Not much I can say to you other than relax and be patient. I'd ask if you need anything but obviously food and oral fluids are out. You warm enough?" As he spoke he reached under the blanket by Artie's feet, made a cursory visual exam and felt them. "Decent circulation for a guy your age and weight. But you seriously need to go on a diet, you know."

He never noticed Artie rolling his eyes, nor did he see one very annoyed Secret Service agent making some very unprofessional gestures toward his back as he walked out of the room.

A somber trio poked their heads inside the door a few minutes later, and smiled when they noted Artie staring at them.

"Hey buddy," exclaimed Pete as he strolled in. "You have no idea how glad I am to see you. We were thinking the worst and here you are, looking…well—" he halted as he groped for words.

Myka finished for him. "-well on your way to a quick recovery. We just spoke to the doctor and he says you're lucky to be alive."

Picking up the pad, Artie scrawled in spiky lettering, "Hard to kill." His lips twitched as he tried to grin. It came more like a grimace.

Walking to the bed, Claudia looked at all the tubing and made one of the guiltiest faces ever seen on a human being. "Sorry dude, if I'd have reached back for you quicker, this wouldn't have happened at all."

With a dismissive wave of his hand, Artie shooed the apology away. He gripped the marker and pad tighter and scribbled furiously, then he flashed it at his team of agents. "WANT OUT NOW!" it said in big bold letters.

Biting her lower lip, Claudia replied, "The doc said it ain't gonna happen right away but look on the bright side. Mrs. Frederic is sure to give you a couple of weeks off just to recuperate, right?"

The pen went into motion again. "FAT CHANCE!" was all it said on the pad.

"Since you can't move around, can I help you with anything?" she asked. She quickly discovered that was the wrong question.

The first page on the pad reappeared and the felt pen added a few more exclamation points after "want out now". Then it stabbed the paper repeatedly with enough force to make the pad wave back and forth. There was no mistaking the direction of his thoughts.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Myka stated, "No way, _Artie_." She emphasized his name in that way she had when insisting he pay heed to her words. "We don't want you collapsing on the way home just because you're too ornery to stay here."

"Feel fine!"

"Only because you're high on morphine!" Myka retorted, trying to stifle a smile.

"High is such a boring word," he wrote in smaller though not more legible writing. "Prefer 'wired'. Now, PLZ get Dr."

"When he's ready he'll be back." She gave his covered foot an affectionate tap almost like a person would pat the head of a child who was trying one's patience. "Why don't we break the monotony by filling you in on our research. I was working on the guy who drowned in the shower when Claudia phoned to tell me what happened."

"Proceed," was rapidly jotted on the page.

"Does the name Marjory Kowalski ring a bell?"

Closing his eyes, Artie went still. No one else worried. Sometimes he did this when trying to dredge up some long forgotten memory. Gradually, they opened again. The pen moved rapidly.

"Sounds familiar. Can't place it."

"Well, the guy who died in the shower…remember we told you he wasn't a nice person?" After she got Artie's quick nod, she went on. "Turns out that Kowalski was his significant other. They lived together for several years."

"Yeah, and he beat the crap out of her for several years," Pete supplied angrily. He had a serious problem with guys who beat up women and he wasn't embarrassed to say so.

"So we think that somehow she found a way to get even," Myka finished the thought for him.

"Why?" was Artie's written response. "Need more than theory. Where now?"

They understood this shorthand. "It _is_ more than a theory," Myka explained. "She cleaned out her bank account about two weeks ago and has steadily been moving eastward along the northern highways. Credit cards confirm this. We lost track of her once she hit South Dakota. So made a couple of phone calls just before all this went down today and found out the Univille Super 8 had a Mary Konrad registered."

"Cha yeah," Claudia scoffed, "like that _original_ pseudonym was going to keep us from figuring out the connection."

"Worked tho'," Artie wrote. "Never suspected her here. Damage done." He noisily flipped another page. "U know artifact?"

"Not exactly, but we have our theories." Pete answered, sounding like Myka and cringing over it.

"Explain!"

"We looked at a number of items that could control the elements, water in particular," Myka supplied.

"Yeah, and figured Poseidon's Trident is the best candidate,"

"Impossible!" Artie scribbled, the decline in readability showing his frustration although they couldn't tell if it was because of his inability to speak directly to them or because he thought their theory was all wrong.

"Sure it's possible," Pete defended himself and stabbed a finger at his boss. "Someone keeps telling me that everything is possible until we rule it out."

Artie scowled at him.

"Besides, the golden fleece was mythological but we know it works. Panodora's box was mythological but we know it was real. Thor's hammer was mythological and…"

Fingers extended, Artie made quick side-to-side slashing motions across his throat. Positioning his right hand back over the paper, the pen tip dropped onto it with a loud pop.

"Fine!" the note said with an angry flourish in the writing. "Not likely then," he amended. The respirator hissed bringing a very bizarre look to Artie's face. He'd been so worked up, he'd tightened his chest muscles and hadn't realized it until the moment air was forced into his lungs. Focusing on calming down, he wrote furiously, "Myth says Trident used only by Poseidon…offspring Greek gods." A page flipped. "Almost all artifacts need human activation." The paper flipped again. "Trident probably fictitious object created by storytellers (flip) to explain how ancient god would (flip) conjure up violent storms to punish humanity!"

"Maybe the myth doesn't tell the whole story about it," Myka interjected, her eyes shifting upward as she thought about it a few seconds.

"Even if real...trident – only a tool – focused god-like ability." As he showed it to them, he underlined the last four words several times. He tried to sit up more as he did this, but failed and flopped back down. The pen went into motion again. "Kowalski NOT deity!"

Shrugging, Pete simply stated, "Well, so far that was our best lead. And it sorta makes sense because what else could control that much water with that much power?" He allowed his voice to grow in strength as he spoke.

Taking his time writing, Artie finally flipped the pad around. "Something undiscovered?" His raised eyebrow illustrated his humor over Pete's narrow focus. A world full of fantastic items that came in every conceivable shape and size and yet Lattimer was only concentrating on one of them.

"Or maybe it didn't need 'god-like' powers to work," Myka thought out loud, getting back to her original point. "Maybe legend was created around a real object that an ordinary man could use." She stared hard at Artie, her green eyes glittering with something akin to humor. "Would hardly be the first time that's happened."

Pen was poised over pad but he let both drop to his blanket-covered lap and, raising both palms upward in surrender. Then, slowly, he nodded his acceptance of that truth. Despite the presence of the tube, a tiny hint of a smile appeared.

Pete, who'd been leaning against the wall, turned to glance at the uncharacteristically silent Claudia and grunted, "All of this stimulating conversation is making me thirsty. Must have coffee. You in?"

"Oh yeah, long day and only getting longer," The teen answered, getting up from her position on the floor near the medical supplies drawers. They both looked at Myka who licked dry lips and nodded.

Resting his hand on the back of a chair, Pete gave Artie a disarming smile. "Look, why don't we let you rest a little bit. We're gonna go get some coffee and…cake, cookies, chocolate. Need sugar! And then we'll be back. Hopefully by then they'll get the tube out and you can start yelling at us again instead of having to write all those exclamation points."

Artie, whose head had been raised enough to look at them, let it thump heavily onto the pillow. They saw his face swing side-to-side in frustration but he flapped one hand to wave them out which they did without further discussion.


	8. Chapter 8

**oooooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 8**

**oooooooooooo **

Eyelids drooping, Artie let his muscles go limp. Having hunched his upper body in order to look directly at them had made him unexpectedly weary and it wasn't long before he was sleeping. He didn't fight it. Reason said that in no time at all the doctor would be in to free him of this painful and annoyingly intrusive object they'd shoved down his throat and sleep would make the time fly by that much faster.

There was no way to tell how long he'd dozed. Certainly not long. No dreams…at least none he could remember. No doctor. No Warehouse agents who would surely have returned in under a half hour. But something was wrong. He could sense it. Not in quite the same way as Pete with his danger vibes. Instead it was in the form of a tiny prickle at the base of his skull that seemed to worm its way into gray matter. That ultimately triggered an unpleasant knotting up of his guts, just as it was doing at that very moment.

The urgency of the feeling drove him from sleep to tingling state of hyper-awareness in less than a few seconds. His brown eyes instantly locked onto dark blue ones. The face staring back at him was taut with…what? Frustration? Anger? As soon as she knew she'd gotten his attention, her pale skin flushed a deep maroon and fury consumed her features.

All he could do was stare at her. And in the act of staring, he saw through the rage contorting her features. Marjory Kowalski. Of course. He knew her now. Mentally, he connected name with face and cringed at the knowledge…not because she looked like she wanted to kill him, which he suspected to be the truth of it, but because he knew why she was there. This wasn't about accidental possession by an artifact needing human hands to activate it or to carry out its purpose. This was all about revenge. Pure and simple.

"You're remembering it, aren't you," she hissed hoarsely, her voice turning as ugly as the hate-filled expression she wore. Overpowering anger seemed to distort everything about her, emanating off her in palpable waves. Artie was glad his hands were no longer tied but the tube created a very short tether and he didn't want to leave his lungs laying on the floor in an attempt to escape her.

"_Where the hell is that doctor_!" he thought in desperation. "_Or anyone else_." But of course no one would know she was a threat so they'd assume checking up on him to be unnecessary.

Kowalski smiled at him, which only distorted her features more. It quickly evolved into a grimace, then a snarl. "Remember him Agent Nielsen? My son? You let him die. It's all your fault. You left him out there. He was only seven for God's sake. Seven you hear me?" As a few tears tracked down her cheeks, her voice grew increasingly more shrill. She fought back those tears by blinking rapidly and furiously swiping at the glistening droplets. She paced back and forth in very small lines, breathing like a race horse at full gallop. "All your fault! All. Your. Fault!" The words hammered at him like a battering ram swung by muscle-bound Vikings.

Artie was essentially helpless to do anything other than listen. But he wasn't thinking about escape at that moment. What his mind had dredged up with painful clarity was a particular life-altering event he'd tried to forget but could never quite force from memory.

Warehouse staff, then under his control if only for a very short time, had been busy tracking down artifacts in two different locations when a third artifact had surfaced and he'd taken it upon himself to retrieve it. Soon after making that decision, he met Marjory Kowalski, a divorcee with a young son. In the midst of gathering information and prior to confiscating the item, the little boy had quickly grown fond of the pudgy yet energetic man. Artie had gone down to the canal back behind the house where a little motor boat was moored. His search had been narrowed to a lantern stored onboard and that was what had brought him to the canal that day. He'd gone onto the boat to inspect it. There had never been any reason to expect that a very inquisitive young boy would be tagging after him and it was only after there was a splash in the water near him did he realized the child had been there. At first he wasn't even sure of that but he'd quickly glanced into the water and saw, about thirty feet away, a small blond head bobbing in the water. Tiny hands were stabbing at the surface of the dirty water. Then he went under.

Artie never hesitated. He jumped over the side and swam to the last spot he'd spotted the child in. But no one was there. He dove and swam, arms outstretched, straining for contact with anything other than water. There was nothing in reach. He surfaced, gasping for breath, drew in another lungful of air, and repeated the search in a different direction. Over and over again, for more time than he could count, he desperately tried to find that boy but ultimately, he'd had to give up. Wild-eyed and panting, he'd run back up to the bungalow and barged into the house, grabbed the phone and called the police.

Marjory Kowalski had screamed, long and loud, as she had raced down to the canal. She ran up and down the edge of it, trying to see her boy but it was only after police divers had searched for more than an hour that the body was located far downstream.

The police had been looking to nail someone for the drowning but couldn't blame him. They had no idea he already blamed himself for not realizing the little boy, who had been in his shadow for three days, would follow him to the river.

When she had finally rounded on him, an insane light glittered forth from deep within her skull. "You're going to pay for what you did," she stated, sounding like some evil psychopath from a very bad movie.

Every muscle in Artie's body tensed. Every nerve ending tingled. Despite it all, his face scrunched up. If he could have spoken, he would have told her she seriously needed a new scriptwriter because the material had been done ad nauseam for decades. Of course, then she would have made him 'pay' that much quicker, and he desperately needed to stall for time so that Pete and Myka could get back and deal with the problem in their own unique way.

"And now, you are going to die the same way he did," she added in a maniacal tone.

Artie felt like gagging. How many clichéd lines did she plan on borrowing? Had his voice been working, he would have reminded her that there was no massive source of water with which to do the job. And obviously she had no awe-inspiring huge trident at hand.

Mrs. Frederic would have accused him of slipping by staying locked into such one dimensional thinking. Of course, he was drugged, recently brought back from the brink of death, hurting, and generally not at his best. Still, she would have been right, he was not thinking clearly. And so he was surprised when Marjory Kowalski produced a bronze object no more than 18 inches long. She'd kept it neatly hidden inside her sleeve and let it slide out as her gaze drilled holes inside his skull. Like the ancient drawings, the artifact had three tines. Unlike the legend, she made no obvious move to strike something in order to produce water. Instead, she walked past his line of vision. Suddenly, he heard water slapping onto metal.

Artie closed his eyes in momentary surrender. A nearly endless supply of water was at hand and it flowed freely from the tap. Craning his neck he tried to see what she was doing but it wasn't necessary. Kowalski was backing up and raising the trident so he could see her every move. The look on her face said she was savoring this moment. Triumph suffused her features. That expression was soon overridden by intense concentration.

Artie frantically looked around, trying to find something, anything in reach that he could use to distract her, to buy him just a few extra minutes. Icy fingers of fear squeezed his insides as he heard a strange gurgling sound. Water sloshed somewhere nearby. The trident didn't glow or change in any obvious way although it did seem to vibrate at an incredible speed much like a tuning fork would.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something silver and amoebic working its way beside him. Instinct took over despite his desire to put up a brave front. His eyes grew so round, the whites were clearly visible. Next to his face was a large, ever-changing blob of clear fluid. As he watched, it became more spherical. Terrified, he suddenly realized what she planned to do and the thought nearly stopped his heart. He'd faced death in countless forms but at least he'd had a fighting chance to get out of it. This time, he was helpless and he couldn't see an escape route.

The emergency call button was no longer in reach which meant she'd removed it while he had dozed. Artie tried to sit up but intense pain from his broken ribs drove him back. He searched for the lever to lower the rails. So many thoughts raced through his head but disconnecting the tube from the respirator was foremost among them. If he could get to his feet and successfully complete that one act, he might make it out of there alive. Maybe. His hand groped again for the rail release but couldn't find it.

Even as the plan raced through his mind, Kowalski acted. She'd had considerable practice lately and exact control of such a low volume of fluid was now much easier. With just a slight tilt of the trident, the blob dropped onto Artie's face but didn't split apart. It enveloped his head like deep sea diver's helmet, wavering as he tried to shake it off but not losing cohesion. Panic set in in earnest. Using his hands, he tried to break the seal. Water not only sloshed right back into place, it flowed up his nose and like a river of fire and worked between his lips where the tube was. His throat filled with water. Drowning was going to be noted as his cause of death on the autopsy report after all. He struggled to sit up again and ended up driven back as air was forced into his lungs.

The respirator! The inflatable bulb. _Oh my God!_ his mind cried joyfully! There was no way water was going to enter his lungs as long as the bulb stayed in position and the respirator would assure that he got a regular supply of air. Immediately, he stopped struggling and concentrated on ordering his thoughts and quieting that sense of panic.

Forcing his eyes open and squinting through the ever-shifting fluid, he could make out Kowalski's form, trident still held out before her. Her facial expression was too blurred to see clearly and yet through the distortion he could see rage still twisting her features into a hideous mask.

Another hiss from the respirator, muted by water, reached his ears. It also finally caught the attention of the woman. He could make out images of her facing that part of the room then looking back at him. There was no mistaking the frown tugging her lips downward.

Kowalski's eyes scanned the panel which operated Artie's air supply. Despite her stereotypical villainous comments, she wasn't stupid. His airway remained open, that much was obvious to her, and she quickly assessed the situation. If she couldn't serve up the same death that her son suffered, then she would accept the next best course of action.

"Time to pull the plug, Agent Nielsen," she stated, smirking.

'_Who the hell writes your material?'_ Artie thought in exasperation as he fought to stay calm by telling himself, '_Maybe she won't find the proper buttons to shut the system down. Maybe Pete will finally finish that cup of coffee and get his ass back up here!' _

Through the bubble of water surrounding his head, Artie saw her start to turn toward her intended target and then freeze. The image was too distorted for him to clearly see what was happening. He expected what? Another speech? More threats? Further rants? Tension cramped up all his major voluntary muscles as she seemed to lean forward. But the next step never arrived. Instead she seemed to shrink in on herself and Artie realized with shock that another shadowed figure had been hidden behind her.

If Artie could have crowed with delight, he would have. His agents had come to the rescue after all.

As she started to sink downward, the trident dropped from her viselike grip and the bubble instantly collapsed, showering the blanket with moisture. 

And then his mind registered something odd. The image of his rescuer, slightly blurred thanks to the absence of his glasses, was too tall to be Pete, too broad-shouldered to be Myka and most definitely too familiar for comfort.

"Hello Arthur," the soft, accented voice purred, drawling out Nielsen's first name so that the 'r's in it virtually disappeared. "Fancy meeting you here, and in such a sorry state." He added a few quick "tsks" for emphasis.

Artie met his nemesis's amused gaze and frowned. There was something not right about the man's appearance, something different from the last two times they'd met. If he could have spoken he would have quipped, "_James, long time no see. Oh by the way, love the dye job. Makes you look years younger." _

That would have been the truth. James MacPherson, roughly Artie's age, stood before him discernibly altered. His hair no longer bore threads of silver. The skin of his face, grown more wrinkled and sallow with age, was now vibrant with a radiantly healthy glow, and far fewer lines embracing eyes and mouth.

Standing over Kowalski's body, MacPherson nudged it with a foot. Her eyes were open, surprisingly bright and shining for someone who'd just been murdered. Bending over, he picked the woman's body up as if it were weightless. Then he placed her on the room's lone chair and gently closed her eyes, making her appear as if she was sleeping while sitting up.

James' dark orbs rose to lock onto Artie's. He smiled that Cheshire cat smile of his and chuckled lightly. "You must think I'm a monster," he stated rhetorically, "but fear not, she's not dead although I suppose she might as well be…now." A large heavily veined hand rose, displaying something small and sharp within its grasp. A dagger, Artie noted. It looked ancient, though probably not more than six or seven hundred years old if he guessed the metal working style correctly. The whole thing was metal. No strip of cloth or leather covered the hilt meaning human flesh against metal at all times unless the bearer wore gloves.

Arms crossing, James tapped the tip of the blade against his bicep in a leisurely fashion. The smile never wavered on his thin lips.

"Care to guess what this is?" he asked, tilting his head in an inquisitive manner as if he truly anticipated Artie's answer. "Well, never mind, I see the cat's got your tongue and doesn't plan on giving it back right away." He paused to glance over his shoulder as if anticipating an interruption or worse, rude surprises. "But I'll bet you know, don't you?" Again, there was that quick grin. "You're bright enough to have figured it out by now, although not nearly as smart as I am because, let's face facts…I tracked it down and retrieved it first, didn't I?" A gloating chuckle emanated from deep within his chest.

Striding closer but not so close that Artie could reach out and grab him, MacPherson spoke in a voice barely above a whisper. He slowly twirled the knife before Artie's attentive and apprehensive gaze. "The legends about this are true you know. Ms.-Poseidon-wannabe has ended up like the others. No hope of recovery. Best of all, I benefit from it. From all of them actually. And you know exactly what I mean, I can tell."

The knife tip was slowly run down Artie's covered thigh. One stab. That was all it would take. He wanted to kick or lash out. To strike the weapon from MacPherson's grasp. Instead, he fought to remain calm, motionless. Muscles in his legs twitched. Adrenalin continued to flood his system. Despite being tethered to the respirator, the minute MacPherson raised his hand to strike, Artie would do whatever it took to knock that blade out of his hand. His arch nemesis may have been gifted with a slightly higher IQ, but Artie had always been the better fighter despite James' extra inches in height. Plus Artie was stronger. Those were two reasons James had repeatedly resorted to surprise and trickery to take him down.

"Ah, ah, ahh, old friend," James murmured playfully. "None of that now. I didn't come here to harm you. That would have been very unsporting of me. The truth is I only wanted to help."

Turning, he gazed at the seemingly paralyzed woman in the chair and stated, "As far as I'm concerned, no one has the right to kill you…unless it's me, that is. So now you owe me one." Saying that, he backed away, tucked the knife into his inside coat pocket, and bent below Artie's line of sight. When he rose up again, he was holding the small trident in his hand. The fact that he didn't even study it made Artie's skin crawl.

"_You knew she had it, didn't you?"_ his eyes said. "_You knew she was out for revenge and you waited for this very moment to capitalize on it. Kill two birds with one stone and leave me indebted to you in the process!"_

A smile tugged at James' lips as if he could hear those thoughts as clearly as if they'd been spoken aloud. "Tah!" he said, saluting with the one tine of the trident against his forehead. "Really must be going before the cavalry arrives."

With a flourish of one hand and a regal bow, he exited the room, turned right and disappeared.

The aforementioned rescue party showed up almost as quickly as MacPherson had anticipated. Roughly forty seconds after the ex Warehouse agent had vacated the room, Pete, Myka and Claudia strolled in, all smiling, totally oblivious to what had just taken place. It didn't take long for their light-hearted attitude to change.

Myka noted Artie's alert state and wide, pleading eyes first. Then she saw the form of a woman sitting in the chair, apparently unconscious or recently deceased. Less than a second later, her eyes took in the rise and fall of the chest, telling her this person was merely sleeping although she couldn't fathom why an apparent stranger would pick that spot to doze off.

Edging around her, Pete also noted the woman. He stared curiously at her for a few seconds before he heard a quick snapping of fingers. Head swiveling quickly, his eyes immediately drifted to Artie. The stocky hand and fingers were deftly forming letters and Pete's background with sign language instantly translated without giving it a moment's thought.

_M…A…C…P…H… _the hand spelled.

"MacPherson? Where?" Pete interrupted loudly enough to turn some heads at the nursing station behind him.

Artie pointed in the direction of his nemesis' last known position and Pete dashed out of the room. Myka stood frozen. Every instinct in her body told her to stick by her partner, they were a team after all, and hunting down MacPherson, even as a duo, was always a tricky and dangerous proposition. Instead, she remained rooted to the spot. She had a responsibility to protect her boss while he was in such a vulnerable state and an untrained Claudia wasn't a suitable substitute for the task. Surreptitiously, she exposed the holster and gun at her hip and rested her hand on the grip. Facing the open door, she said, "Claudia, would you please get some help for this woman? Find Artie's doctor or a nurse and ask them to _quietly_ move her to another station."

"Discreet removal, Ma'am, yes ma'am," the redhead saluted and exited the isolation room.

Barreling down the hallway, Pete dodged hospital staff, visitors, and mobile patients. He didn't bother searching the emergency room entrance with its automatic doors and crowds of people.

Shoes pounding against the tiled floor, arms pumping furiously, lips pursing with every hard cleansing breath, he raced to the main lobby with the hospital parking garage just beyond it. Reason told him his target had probably driven to the hospital rather than relying on public transportation or the availability of cabs. And he'd been right.

"MacPherson!" Pete hollered, not caring who heard. He ignored the glares of desk staff and yelled the name again despite seeing the man ahead of him stiffen and turn slowly in his direction.

Sliding to a halt, Pete stared in shock. It was James MacPherson who faced him, that was certain, but the older man appeared to have shed at least ten years. His lean, tall body looked toned and his stance was straighter. His hair was solid black. The high cheek bones didn't seem quite as prominent and any wrinkles he possessed had become far less obvious.

They glared at one another, two alpha males trying to stare down the other. It was Pete who broke the silence.

"Keeping your plastic surgeon busy?" he inquired in an amused tone, forcing a white feral grin to reveal itself.

A slow smile spread across James' face as he appreciated Pete's reaction. "How lovely to see you again too, Agent Lattimer," the man said in his usual aristocratic accent. "To what do I owe this honor?"

Pete frowned, not fooled by the civil conversation. "Cut the crap, MacPherson. What the hell did you do to Artie? I know you gotta be involved in those water attacks somehow."

"On the contrary, dear boy," the man said, patting his chest, his face an ingenuous mask. "I didn't do a thing to him. Ask him yourself. And thanks to me you'll be able to do just that." The oily smirk was returning.

MacPherson pivoted lightly as if to leave but Pete's warning to "hold on," stopped him in his tracks. As James turned back he saw, partially hidden under a light jacket, the Tesla beneath Lattimer's hand.

"Now now, let's both act like civilized adults…Pete…you don't mind if I call you that do you? After all, we're old friends and should dispense with the formalities, don't you think?"

"You're coming back with me," was all Pete said, flinching at how clichéd it sounded.

"To what? The Warehouse and its Bronze sector?" He actually laughed aloud, attracting the attention of several visitors strolling through the lobby. He shook his head, almost sadly, and added, "I like it out here. Besides, the thought of being frozen for centuries in that dreary place is just too depressing."

"Awww. Too bad, so sad," Pete murmured quietly, not sounding sad at all.

Frowning, James held up a hand. "Let's not be too hasty, Pete. I wouldn't want this to go off by accident." Nestled between the long lean fingers was a silver tube. Instantly, Pete recognized it and the blood in his veins nearly froze solid. Implosion grenade. But there was no blue band showing in the center of it which meant it hadn't been activated yet.

As if reading his thoughts, MacPherson stated slowly, as if speaking to a child, "It takes less than a second to activate. You wouldn't even have time to train that pathetic weapon on me before I did just that, not that it would do you much good anyway. I always carry a wonderful little 'gizmo' that negates the effects of the Tesla. I'm surprised Arthur never told you."

The truth was that Artie had told both of his agents and Claudia about MacPherson's resistance to the weapon but in his present haste to catch their mutual enemy, Pete had forgotten about it. Looking around at all the people in the lobby who would be killed or maimed if MacPherson set off the implosion device, he tucked the Tesla more securely into his waistband and let both hands slowly drop to his side.

"Excellent decision. Now, I'm going to walk out of here and you can run along back to your master who will gladly regale you with tales of his recent adventure."

Taking a few steps toward the door, MacPherson suddenly turned and found Pete still watching him. "Oh, do me a favor and tell Arthur something for me, would you? Tell him there will be ample opportunity to use this later." He reached into his suit coat pocket and briefly flourished a small solid bronze blade. James added a few additional comments, pocketed the knife again and walked out for good, leaving Pete frozen to the spot, his face a mask of horror.


	9. Chapter 9

**ooooooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 9**

**Ooooooooooooo**

By the time Lattimer got back to the ER, the 'body' of Marjory Kowalski had been moved to a stretcher in a cubicle on the opposite end of the emergency department. Myka had given no explanations aside from saying she'd found the woman just like that and the staff had asked no more of her.

The next thing she'd done was hunt down Artie's physician, Dr. Ian Slater, who hadn't been in a hurry to relieve him of his medical tether until Myka had gone all Secret Service on his ass. After that he'd pulled himself away from filling in patient charts and headed to the isolation room.

"About time!" the hastily scrawled note said as they both walked through the door.

"Let's get that out for you then," the doctor muttered sounding none to pleased having Myka giving him the evil eye as he got ready to begin. The doctor lowered the bed a little, physically tilted Nielsen's head back slightly, and removed the tape affixing the tube to his face and mouth. That done, he opened a syringe package, removed the needle and attached it to the port on the tube. Then he pulled back on the syringe, draining the air out of the bulb.

Setting the plastic syringe aside, he simply stated, "Okay, just try to relax," and he pulled the long tube free of Artie's throat. Artie let go a long moaning "Aaahhhggh!" as it slid free, releasing all the air still trapped in his lungs. This was quickly followed by an involuntary and shuddering inhalation.

"God that felt good!" Artie exclaimed hoarsely, sounding like he had a terribly case of laryngitis.

"Really?" Claudia asked, clearly surprised because it didn't look like it would feel all that great.

Artie gave her a sardonic look, his right eyebrow twitching. "No! Felt awful but complaints don't help." The truth was that his throat felt like someone had lit up a blowtorch in there and all he could think of was getting something to quench the burn. "Need water…" Suddenly, he grimaced. "Um, juice. Juice."

Without hesitation, Claudia went out to find what he'd requested and by the time she got back, she found Pete just entering the room. Shouldering her way past him, she handed over the small cup of cold juice. Opening it, Nielsen downed it in two quick swallows.

"Now _that_ was good!" he told her, with a lopsided grin. He turned to size up Pete. "I gather MacPherson got away?"

"Not exactly. He and I had an interesting chat."

"About?" Artie prompted, his expression hardening.

Smoothing back his hair, Pete replied, "The benefits of plastic surgery, the risks associated with setting off implosion grenades in a crowded lobby—"

"He threatened to use it?" inquired Artie, not sounding at all surprised that James would threaten to use one of those devices.

Nodding, Pete said, "Bingo."

Artie rubbed the side of his mouth which was reddened by the tube that had previously rested there. "Show and tell time?"

"In front of a captive audience. Not that anyone knew what they were seeing or how close to death they actually were."

Releasing a ragged breath, Nielsen stated, "So that makes three of them now. Wish I knew how many Eric made for him." He shook his head and waved both hands despite the IV tubes taped to one of them. "Never mind, doesn't matter. We'd always have to assume he has more anyway. Or has something worse than that."

"There's something worse?" Pete asked incredulously.

All Artie did was pierce him with a hard stare.

"There's always something worse," Myka translated the look for him. "Artie, what's going on here, aside from MacPherson's successful escape I mean. Why was he here? And what does it have to do with all of this," she gestured at the hospital room. "Or with that woman?"

Clearing his raw throat, Artie turned pleading eyes on the teenager. "Claudia? Would you mind getting me more juice, please?"

"Why are you suddenly being so nice?" she scowled at him, trying to figure out what his game plan was. "Okay, but don't you dare explain any of this without me. I mean, someone tried to off me too and I deserve some answers, don't you think."

Artie shooed her away with repeated backward flips of his fingers. Reluctantly, she did as bidden, grumbling under her breath the whole way. When she returned, she was surprised to find that they weren't in the middle of a discussion. Handing over the container and waiting on Artie to drain it as he had the first one, she eyed the empty chair previously occupied by the unconscious woman. _What the hell_, Claudia thought ruefully, _it isn't like she died there_. With apparent ease, she lowered herself into it, crossed her legs, and folded her hands over her raised knee.

As soon as the teenager had gotten comfortable, Artie launched into answering questions. He drew in a long, rough breath and savored the moment. At least he didn't need mechanical equipment to do the job for him and the thought brought an inward smile. "Explanations, right. First, Pete, Myka, you were right…about several things. That was Marjory Kowalski, and Poseidon's trident was indeed the culprit for all of our water mishaps."

While it was no major compliment, Pete stuck out his chest with some small measure of pride. He was getting better at this whole Warehouse thing and just knowing he'd solved a mystery basically by himself had done wonders for his ego, not that he was going to crow about it at that moment. No, he'd wait for a better opportunity, just to needle Myka a bit when she really deserved it. It took him several seconds to get back on track again.

"She'd been warming up. Practicing with it, trying to gain some control over the artifact, to be more precise with its application."

Licking his lips quickly, he continued, "She'd hoped to kill me, I'm sure, in that gulley but failing that, she came here to finish the job."

"Okay, so the trident was responsible," Myka stated, her green eyes glazing over slightly as she tried to rapidly assess the situation. "By why? I mean, why did she do it? This smelled of revenge. She killed the man abusing her but why come here? What'd you ever do to her?"

"I survived and her son didn't," replied Artie, his voice weighted down with sorrow. He had been staring at his laced fingers as he gave voice to that painful thought but then he looked at all of them. "To make a long story short, her son died…drowned to be specific…and she thought I should have done more to rescue him than I had. Believe me," he continued, emphasizing the first word, "I did everything short of killing myself trying to get to him but failed anyway. The flow of the river in the canal was deceptively strong. Pulled the boy far away and since he never resurfaced, I didn't know where to look. I guessed and was…wrong. The police exonerated me. Treated me almost like a hero for making the attempt, but apparently she was too scarred to think straight. I don't blame her for her grief…" his voice cracked and he took a deep steadying breath. "But this was nothing more than displaced anger. I heard the judge found her guilty of neglect and I guess she felt like she had to lash out at someone."

"To quote my mother, two wrongs don't make a right," Myka said sadly. "Killing you wouldn't return her son to her."

"You know that and I know that but she was beyond rational thought."

Claudia piped in, "So how'd she figure out where to look for you?"

"I'm guessing the same way you figured out how to look for me last year."

Choking on bile, Claudia ground out, "MacPherson was behind it?"

"With a 92.1% probability," Artie said with a tight smile as he shifted in the bed, causing the mattress to make crunchy noises. The others just stared at him, dumbfounded.

"Joking! Although the odds are still in favor of him helping her. For one thing she had the trident and probably didn't just happen to run across it in a flea market or washed up on her lawn. Second, given James' timely arrival here, he was probably keeping tabs on her as she was following me. James is the ultimate opportunist. He probably saw this as a means to either assure my demise or failing that to capitalize on my survival."

"So he did what? Nearly kill Kowalski as a favor to you?" Pete inquired with a furrowed brow.

"Not exactly. Did you see the state she was in?"

Myka nodded, "She appeared catatonic or at least that was my perception of it."

Bobbing his chin once, Artie explained further, "She came in here, pulled out the trident which wasn't anywhere near as big as you'd expect, by the way, and tried to kill me with water from the sink over there." He craned his neck to see the sink's location. "But because of how the respirator functions, she couldn't drown me…though she certainly tried, trust me."

Nielsen swallowed several times. All this talking was obviously causing him great discomfort but they all wanted to hear this out to the end. Artie didn't refuse them. Taking a long full breath, he explained how she attempted to unplug his only source of oxygen.

"Before she got that far, I saw someone come up behind her and then she collapsed. That's when I realized it was MacPherson. He was holding a knife in his hand and had clearly used it on her."

"So he tried to murder her but failed?" Pete asked, already assuming this to be the case.

"No, he never intended to kill her. He was after something far more precious than her life-blood. You see, while you were researching Kowalski, I had been doing some investigations of my own—"

"—about the catatonia patients," Myka supplied, not meaning to cut him off in mid sentence him but doing it anyway.

Clearly not upset at the interruption, Artie answered, "Exactly. I had some hunches I was following up on about what might precipitate such a condition and finally isolated one that fit the bill perfectly."

"And?" Myka inquired, curiosity evident in her wide eyes.

"And I thought it might be—" he stopped midsentence. "Does the name Vlad Tepes ring any bells?"

All three heads shook back and forth. "Would saying that 'Tepes' means Impaler in the native language tell you anything?" He looked directly at Myka when he said this because he knew of her considerable fondness for educational books and the valuable information that could be gotten from them. He knew he'd made his point when those green orbs glittered brightly.

"Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracul," she breathed out the name in a throaty growl. Oh yeah, she'd clearly read about him.

Claudia blinked a few times. "You mean, like the Dracula dude from the movies?"

"Not exactly," Artie replied, then chastised. "It's hard enough finding unbiased truth even in documentaries so what makes you think that horror flicks remotely reflect the real man."

Shrugging expansively, Claudia knew better than to take offense. She understood that Artie in exposition mode was best left on course because creating a fuss would earn nothing but chores when she got back. "Okay, me give up, Kimosabe. Who real Dracula?"

The whole stilted pseudo Native American speech pattern, straight out of the 50's didn't endear her to Artie at that moment. He stared at her with hooded eyes for a few seconds before going on.

"Vlad Dracul Tepes III was reputed to be a terribly cruel and abusive ruler. History books said he reveled in impaling his victims and watching them die. There were many stories about the various other methods he used to torture his victims. But there was one thing no history book ever recorded. Very ancient writings, stored in a Romanian monastery, tell of a unique possession under Dracul's control. It told of a knife with very peculiar powers."

"This wouldn't happen to be an all metal knife?" Pete inquired, envisioning the item in MacPherson's grubby paw.

"That it would," Artie confirmed in a half-whisper. "This weapon was said to be a kind of soul-stealer. Unless the wielder wanted someone dead and used it to that end, a simple stab would absorb the soul, the spark of life of the victim. It's more complicated than a simple a vampiric attack on life-force. It steals something that science can't prove exists. And once done, the victim ends up as Ms. Kowalski and many others did. Living corpses. The body simply surviving on autopilot if you will."

Pete shifted back and forth from left foot to right and back again, then shoved both fists into his pockets. "And flesh on solid metal hilt allows the transfer to take place?" He nodded at his own question, clearly not expecting a confirmation. Artie gave none.

"The papers did say there was an advantage to doing this. Dracul III was killed by the Turks in 1476 and the blade then fell into other hands. As Bram Stoker's Dracula took on the persona of a blood sucking vampire, the real owners of the knife enjoyed a significantly extended life span. The real challenge was to hang onto the blade. Once others figured out the person was actually getting younger after each attack or maintaining youth afterward, attempts were made to steal it or kill the owner in order to possess it. So the soul-stealer changed hands many times until it disappeared around 1918."

"And then MacPherson found it," muttered Myka, angry at what this story said to her on a personal and professional level. Their nemesis was reversing his aging process by robbing others of their very life-spark. It boggled her mind. She'd believed him to be evil before just because of his callous disregard for the lives of others, but somehow this went beyond that. This was treating people like cattle, like a food source. Her stomach clenched painfully.

Reaching for the button to raise the head of the bed more, Artie then turned sympathetic eyes on her as if he could read her thoughts. Or perhaps he was simply feeling the same way she did, Myka thought to herself. She'd never doubted his level of compassion for others. He was, in this way, the exact opposite of his old partner.

It was Pete who broke the brief silence. His voice was dark with barely restrained anger as his brown eyes met Nielsen's. "He wanted me to give you a message. I figured he was going Dr. Evil on me but with everything you just explained-"

"Give," was all Artie said.

Pete delivered it verbatim. "He said, '_Tell Arthur something for me would you? Tell him there will be ample opportunity to use this later. Imagine who could feel the kiss of my blade. Ahh, the possibilities are endless, aren't they?'_ and then he walked out. I had no choice, he had the implosion—"

Throwing up one hand, Artie stopped the forthcoming apologies. "No one's questioning your decisions, Pete, least of all me. You did the right thing. We've had to let him walk with artifacts before in order to save lives. We'll just have to work harder to apprehend him again, that's all."


	10. Chapter 10

**ooooooooooooo**

**CHAPTER 10**

**ooooooooooooo**

Artie's bruised and battered body was sprawled on the sofa in the B&B's sitting room with a stack of folders in his lap, one perched on his stomach, and another spread between both hands. He'd shed the shoulder sling because the soreness in his dislocated shoulder had abated somewhat, especially when lying in that position. He slowly peeled back another sheet, scanned it and switched the paper over to the other side of the folder.

Coffee cups in hand, Pete and Myka settled into upholstered chairs near him but remained silent. After several seconds, Artie's eyes finally drifted over the top of the folder and locked on Myka first, then Pete.

"Any luck?" was his quick query.

Answering first, Pete stated, "No, he disappeared off the face of the earth again. All of us have been taking shifts trying to track him down but he's leaving nothing to trace. I'm beginning to think he's got a Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica."

"That's the Arctic," Artie replied absently, his eyes already back on his reading.

"What?" Pete asked, looking momentarily confused.

"Superman's Fortress of Solitude. It was located in the Arctic."

"Oh, right. Guess you'd know. Superman was originally an old-timers comic book wasn't it?" Lattimer grinned wickedly. "I was more of an X-men kinda guy. Storm was so hot!"

Rolling her eyes, Myka bit back a snide comment. Artie simply groaned and nestled back further into the cushions.

Bouncing through the front door, Claudia jogged up the stairs but not without complaining, "Whew, skunk!" before she disappeared. She'd been at this for a week and Artie was finding it very tiresome but today it made him smile anyway. It felt good to have things back to normal.

Less than two minutes later she returned, loudly thumping on the stairs, and practically skated into the room where everyone was congregating. She threw herself onto a nearby chair, crossed her legs, leaned back and closed her eyes as if preparing for a nap. No one was fooled by her transparent attempt to eavesdrop but Artie didn't have the heart to chase her out, especially if she remained silent.

"Arthur," a stern voice broke through his pleasant reveries, flash freezing his heart before it could pump again. "We need to talk."

"Mrs. Frederic," he answered in a voice sounding like it had when the tube was first removed. His superior had just popped in like she usually did, without warning and without the sounds of doors opening or closing. He also had no doubt the limo and her ever present body guard were outside waiting on her.

"I thought you should know that this just arrived for you." The African American woman stretched out a neatly manicured hand with something flat in it.

Artie reached out to the take the proffered envelope. Slowly he eyed it, noting it was addressed to him and already open. No surprise there. Nothing was truly private if you were a Warehouse agent and Mrs. Frederic wanted information about you. So he genuinely felt no ire at this intrusion.

"No address," he noted aloud.

Mrs. Frederic nodded. "His bodyguard Carson hand delivered it to one of my contacts in Washington. James knew it'd get to me soon enough and then on to you. And I have no doubt he wanted me to see it." Eyes hooded, she hesitated for a mere second before adding, "For the first time in my life, Arthur, MacPherson is scaring me and I can't say I care for the feeling."

Fighting to keep anxiety from writing itself all over his face, Artie's twitching fingers reached into the envelope. Cautiously, he pulled out five items, each one an 8 X 10 glossy color photo.

"Pete's sister," he murmured, stretching out his arm as far as it would go before Lattimer got up to take it. Pete studied the photo of the beautiful younger woman, asleep in her bed.

"Myka's parents," Artie said sadly, handing the second photo to Agent Bering. As with Pete's sister, her parents were sound asleep.

The next one was turned toward Claudia. "Joshua," she breathed out the name, covering he mouth with the tips of her slender fingers. Hesitantly, she took it from him. Her brother was curled up in bed, his arms wrapped around a beautiful blond haired woman…a woman she didn't recognize, or know about until that very moment.

Flipping the next one around to get a better view, Nielsen said, "I don't recognize this person."

"My…granddaughter," Mrs. Frederic stated, her voice razor sharp and her anger barely restrained. The preteen girl in that photo was dozing among stuffed animals, and Hello Kitty sheets.

The last one, the one he dreaded seeing most, came into focus. As with the others, it showed a person safely tucked into bed, her attractive face looking years younger thanks to whatever pleasant dream was dancing through her mind. He'd recognize her anywhere. This was the sister who'd made him an uncle twice over, the one in witness protection as a result of his stupid actions while working with the NSA all those years ago and yet still cared about him in spite of it all.

As she studied the photo, Mrs. Frederic's rage was so palpable that the air vibrated around her. Her dark, inscrutable gaze latched onto Artie's so hard that it was almost painful. When she finally spoke, there was a coldness to her tone that turned his heart into a solid block of ice. "Arthur, I never thought there would come a day when I'd ask this of you, but…next time you run across MacPherson, show no mercy."

As Artie gazed tenderly at the photo of his sister once again, nothing terrified him more than realizing he wholeheartedly agreed with her.


End file.
